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Clock-G: Temporal Graph Management System

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Transactions on Large-Scale Data- and Knowledge-Centered Systems LIV

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((TLDKS,volume 14160))

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Abstract

Graphs are a ubiquitous data model for capturing entities and their relationships. Since most graphs that model real-world networks evolve over time, efficiently managing temporal graphs is an important problem from both a theoretical and practical perspective. Querying the history of temporal graphs can lead to new applications such as object tracking, anomaly detection, and predicting future behavior. However, existing commercial graph databases lack native temporal support, hindering their usefulness in these use cases.

This paper introduces Clock-G, a temporal graph management system designed to handle the history temporal graphs. What differentiates Clock-G from other temporal graph management systems is its comprehensive approach, covering query language, query processing, and physical storage. We define T-Cypher, a temporal extension of Cypher query language, enabling user-friendly and concise querying of the graph’s history. Additionally, we propose a query processor that utilizes temporal statistics collected from underlying temporal graphs to offer a good evaluation plan for T-Cypher queries. We also propose a novel storage technique that balances space usage and query evaluation time.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    https://www.thinginthefuture.com/.

  2. 2.

    https://www.pole-emc2.fr/projet/mo-di-flu/.

  3. 3.

    https://neo4j.com.

  4. 4.

    https://project.inria.fr/tcypher/.

  5. 5.

    The elapsed time between two time intervals i and \(i'\) is equal to the difference between the starting time instant of \(i'\) and the ending time instant of i.

  6. 6.

    https://neo4j.com.

  7. 7.

    https://ride.citibikenyc.com/system-data.

  8. 8.

    We use the built-in Neo4j’s indexing utility to include indexes on the properties tStart and tEnd.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Univ Rennes CNRS IRISA, Rennes, France

    Maria Massri & Zoltan Miklos

  2. Orange Labs, Cesson Sévigné, France

    Maria Massri, Philippe Raipin & Pierre Meye

Authors
  1. Maria Massri
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  2. Zoltan Miklos
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  3. Philippe Raipin
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  4. Pierre Meye
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Correspondence to Maria Massri .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Paul Sabatier University, IRIT, Toulouse, France

    Abdelkader Hameurlain

  2. Technical University of Vienna, IFS, Vienna, Austria

    A Min Tjoa

  3. Aix-Marseille University, LIS, Marseille, France

    Omar Boucelma

  4. Université Clermont Auvergne, CNRS, LIMOS, Aubiere, France

    Farouk Toumani

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Massri, M., Miklos, Z., Raipin, P., Meye, P. (2023). Clock-G: Temporal Graph Management System. In: Hameurlain, A., Tjoa, A.M., Boucelma, O., Toumani, F. (eds) Transactions on Large-Scale Data- and Knowledge-Centered Systems LIV. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 14160. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-68014-8_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-68014-8_1

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