Graph is a native feature of Oracle AI Database. Developers, analysts, and data scientists can work with two graph models: property graphs and RDF graphs.
Property graphs represent data as entities and the relationships between them, with properties that describe both. Property graphs make it easy to explore and analyze relationships – for example, discover patterns by traversing connections, identify important entities, find paths, cluster related data, and apply graph algorithms and graph machine learning.
RDF graphs provide a standards-based foundation for representing knowledge, including ontologies and knowledge graphs. Ontologies define the concepts, relationships, and rules that give data shared meaning and context. Using RDF graphs and ontologies, you can add a semantic layer to data, integrate information from diverse sources such as in a lakehouse, provide richer context for AI applications, and use automated reasoning to derive new facts from existing data.
This article provides a learning path for all things Oracle Graph, covering both property graphs and RDF graphs. For hands-on how-tos, we link to examples on GitHub.
Getting Started
All you need to get started is Oracle AI Database and your favorite SQL tool. Look at the Graph Tools section for tools to visualize graphs and for other graph-specific operations.
With Oracle AI Database 26ai, you can create and query property graphs using SQL. For RDF graphs, Oracle supports W3C semantic web standards, including RDF, RDFS, OWL, and SPARQL, you can also run SPARQL queries from within SQL.
If you are using Oracle Database 19c, you can work with property graphs using PGQL (Property Graph Query Language), an older language that requires a client library. RDF graph and semantic technologies are available in Oracle Database 19c using W3C standards. Note: PGQL is supported in Oracle AI Database 26ai, so your graph applications will continue to work when you upgrade. You also have the option to migrate your PGQL property graphs to SQL property graphs when you upgrade.
Query language and standards support
| 26ai | 19c | |
| Property graphs (for discovering and analyzing patterns in data) | SQL (SQL:2023 standard)PGQL (supported for customers upgrading from 19c) | PGQL |
| RDF graphs (for ontologies and knowledge graphs) | W3C standards of RDF, OWL, SPARQLSQL APIs for RDF graph operationsSPARQL wrapped in SQL for queries | W3C standards of RDF, OWL, SPARQLSQL APIs for RDF graph operationsSPARQL wrapped in SQL for queries |
Graph Tools in Oracle AI Database 26ai
Graph Studio
Graph Studio provides an integrated environment for working with graphs. It includes graph modeling, a query interface with graph visualization, notebook support for data scientists, and an in-memory Graph Server for advanced graph analytics.
Graph Server is designed to run graph algorithms in memory and in parallel at high speed. It supports algorithms for ranking, clustering, path analysis, graph machine learning, and more.
Graph Studio supports both property graphs and RDF-based semantic graphs, including ontologies and knowledge graphs.
Graph Studio is fully managed when used with Oracle AI Database, and is user managed for other database deployments. Developers using databases in Oracle Cloud can install user-managed Graph Studio from Oracle Cloud Marketplace, developers using on-premises databases can do so from Oracle Software Delivery Cloud.
Any SQL Tool
Any SQL tool can be used to create and query property graphs, since Oracle AI Database 26ai implements the SQL:2023 standard that includes the SQL/PGQ section on property graphs. You can get started with this complete example on GitHub.
Any SQL tool can be used to create and query RDF graphs, including ontologies and knowledge graphs based on RDF graphs. The W3C standard SPARQL query can be wrapped in a specially designed SQL function. You can get started with this complete example on GitHub.
SQL Developer Extension for Visual Studio Code
The property graph visualization extension for the SQL Developer extension for VS Code enables you to visualize the results of property graph queries directly in VS Code.
Oracle APEX
The graph visualization plug-in for Oracle APEX makes it easy to build applications that incorporate interactive property graph visualizations.
Graph Tools in Oracle Database 19c
Graph Studio
Graph Studio can be used in both fully managed and user-managed environments and provides graph visualization and analytics capabilities as described above.
SQL Developer Desktop
SQL Developer desktop supports both property graph and RDF graph workflows.
For property graphs, SQL Developer 26.2 or later is required to run PGQL queries. SPARQL query support for RDF graphs is available in earlier SQL Developer releases.
Introduction to Graphs
This section provides a conceptual introduction to modeling your data as a graph and why graphs are interesting.
What are Graphs? (video)
What is a graph and why is it useful? (video)
Graphs simplify software development (blog)
Why should you use graph analytics? (blog)
Graph Database Use Cases for Financial Services Companies (blog)
- Customer example: Paysafe. Customer success story and video.
SQL Property Graphs | Available as of Oracle AI Database 26ai
In Oracle AI Database 26ai, we support the SQL:2023 standard that includes SQL syntax for working with property graphs. We refer to graphs created using this SQL syntax as ‘SQL property graphs.’
Introduction to SQL Property Graphs – 26ai (video)
Graphs in Oracle AI Database 26ai (video)
Intro to SQL Property Graphs – 26ai with Demo (video)
When Property Graphs join SQL (video)
Step by Step Guides to get started with SQL property graphs
Use Oracle AI Database 26ai with Oracle Graph on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (blog)
Get started with property graphs in Oracle AI Database 26ai Free (blog)
Get started with Oracle Graphs using SQL Developer (blog)
Visualize Graphs with Graph visualization tool (blog)
SQL Property Graphs in APEX (video)
PGQL Property Graphs | Available with Oracle Database 19c or higher
PGQL is the acronym for the Property Graph Query Language, the SQL-like graph query language to work with graphs. In Oracle Database 19c, you would use PGQL to work with graphs. We refer to graphs created using PGQL as ‘PGQL property graphs.’
Autonomous AI Database with Graph Studio
Graph Studio in Autonomous AI Database is a fully managed service for using graphs in Oracle AI Database.
Using Graph Studio for New Insight (video)
Discover Communities using Graph Analytics (video)
Step by Step Guides to get started with PGQL property graphs using a fully managed service (Autonomous AI Database)
Setup Autonomous AI Database to use Graph Studio (blog)
Configura tu base de datos autónoma para utilizar Graph Studio (blog)
Contact tracing in Graph Studio (blog)
Guest post: Graph Studio Tutorial (Parts 1-6) (blog)
Autonomous AI Database with Graph Server and Client
You can also use a fully managed Autonomous AI Database with user managed Graph Server and Client (marketplace image available on OCI marketplace).
Step by Step Guides to get started with PGQL property graphs using a fully managed database (Autonomous AI Database) with user managed Graph Server
Marketplace image with Autonomous AI Database (blog)
Using Graph Python client with Autonomous AI Database (blog)
Detect Conflicts of Interest using Graphs (blog)
On-Premise Deployment
If you want to get started using Oracle Graph with a user-managed database you have, here are the simple steps to get started. Graph is a feature of Oracle AI Database, and you just need to download some client libraries to get started.
Step by Step Guides
Get started with Oracle Graphs using SQL Developer Desktop (blog)
Get Started with Oracle Graph in Oracle Database 19c using SQLcl (blog)
Oracle Graph Server REST API (blog)
More Information
Stack Overflow (questions with oracle-graph tag)
Slack OracleDevRel (invitation link, please visit #oracle-db-graph)