SQLBits 2018

Introduction to Graph Processing with SQL Server 2017

Hierarchies and graphs are the bread and butter of most business applications. SQL Server 2017 comes now with a different approach: Graph Database. You will learn best practices, have fun and will leave with handy scripts.
Hierarchies and graphs are the bread and butter of most business applications and you find them almost everywhere:

  • Product Categories
  • Sales Territories
  • Bill of Material
  • Calendar and Time

Even when there is a big need from a business perspective, the solutions in relational databases are mostly sort of awkward. The most flexible hierarchies are usually modeled as self-referenced tables. If you want to successfully query such self-referenced hierarchies, you will need either loops or recursive Common Table Expressions. SQL Server 2017 comes now with a different approach: Graph Database.

Join this session for a journey through best practices to transform your hierarchies into useful information. We will have fun playing around with a sample database based on G. R. R. Martin’s famous “Game of Thrones”.