Bitnine Looks to Scale PostgreSQL

The successor to AgensGraph, the multi-mode database that added a standard graph query language to PostgreSQL, retains that and other features while expanding the ability to scale without sacrificing performance.

Released this week, AGE continues to offer SQL integration along with AgensGraph’s integration of the Cypher graph query language to PostgreSQL. AGE also offers integration with other PostgreSQL extensions while allowing users to retain existing tools.

Graph database specialist Bitnine Global released AgensGraph in 2017, the addition of the Cypher graph query language being most notable. The company said Tuesday (June 30) that AGE retains support for standard SQL and openCypher, an open source query language for label property graph databases.

A label property graph is among several data representation approaches utilized in graph databases, with data organized as nodes, relationships, and properties.

Bitnine touts AGE as expanding the ability to scale via support for NoSQL models on top of relational models. Built on PostgreSQL, the company also notes that AGE delivers “enterprise-level OLTP” while other graph databases are considered OLAP database management systems.

The AGE architecture is structured to parse Cypher queries embedded in function calls, at which point openCypher grammar is implemented. The Cypher query is then transformed into a query tree that is attached as a subquery node.

Once graph operations are understood and “plan nodes” are produced related to graph operations, AGE executes nodes related to the appropriate operations.

Finally, Cypher queries operate within Postgres’ “fully transactional” ACID system, according to a company paper provided to Datanami.

“The AGE team is envisioning [how] to grow its community and ecosystem to offer natural language processing, graph algorithms and machine learning features,” the company said.

The open source graph database extension to Postgres has been accepted by the Apache Foundation as an incubation project.

An alpha version of its AgensGraph extension is available for download here.

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