Neo Technology, creators of Neo4j, the world’s leading graph database, today announced the release of “Graph Databases,” the authoritative book on graph databases. Written by Ian Robinson, Jim Webber and Emil Eifrem, the book is a practical guide to graph database technology with rich detail drawn from real-world experience of implementing the technology. An early access edition is now available for free download at graphdatabases.com.

“This book was written with the goal of providing everyone with the basic understanding of graph databases,” said Emil Eifrem, CEO of Neo Technology. “The book gives unprecedented access to the power and flexibility of the graph and provides best practices for implementing graph database technology. Enjoy ‘Graph Databases’ and welcome to the wonderful world of graph databases!”

Graph databases are particularly well suited to address one of the great contemporary business trends: leveraging complex and dynamic relationships to generate insight and competitive advantage. Whether we want to understand relationships between customers, elements in a telephone or data center network, entertainment, or genes and proteins, the ability to understand and analyze vast graphs of highly connected data will be a key factor in determining which companies outperform in the coming decade.

According to Mitch Pronschinske of DZone, “The reason why graph databases are so successful and growing in popularity right now is because many businesses are evolving beyond atomic intelligence, and making huge competitive gains by leveraging connected intelligence. Graph databases are the best way to do this.”

Graph databases are already proven to solve some of the most relevant data management challenges of today, including important problems in the areas of social networking, master data management, geospatial, recommendations engines, and more. As information processing continues to evolve, the next frontier arguably lies in the ability to capture, analyze, and understand relationships.

The book will leave readers with a practical understanding of graph databases and will show how data is “shaped” by the graph model, and how it is queried, reasoned about, understood and acted upon. The book discusses the kinds of problems that are well aligned with graph databases, with examples drawn from practical, real-world use cases. The book also describes the surrounding ecosystem of complementary technologies, highlighting what differentiates graph databases from other database technologies, both relational and NOSQL.