Neptune Best Practices Using openCypher and Bolt
Follow these best practices when using the openCypher query language and Bolt protocol with Neptune. For information about using openCypher in Neptune, see Accessing the Neptune Graph with openCypher.
Topics
- Create a new connection after failover
- Connection handling for long-lived applications
- Connection handling for AWS Lambda
- Prefer directed to bi-directional edges in queries
- Neptune does not support multiple concurrent queries in a transaction
- Close driver objects when you're done
- Use explicit transaction modes for reading and writing
- Retry logic for exceptions
- Set multiple properties at once using a single SET clause
- Use parameterized queries
- Use flattened maps instead of nested maps in UNWIND clause
- Place more restrictive nodes on the left side in Variable-Length Path (VLP) expressions
- Avoid redundant node label checks by using granular relationship names
- Specify edge labels where possible
- Avoid using the WITH clause when possible
- Place restrictive filters as early in the query as possible
- Explicitly check whether properties exist
- Do not use named path (unless it is required)
- Avoid COLLECT(DISTINCT())
- Prefer the properties function over individual property lookup when retrieving all property values
- Perform static computations outside of the query
- Batch inputs using UNWIND instead of individual statements
- Prefer using custom IDs for node/relationship
- Avoid doing ~id computations in the query
Create a new connection after failover
In case of a failover, the Bolt driver can continue connecting to the old writer instance rather than the new active one, because the DNS name resolved to a specific IP address.
To prevent this, close and then reconnect the Driver object after
any failover.
Connection handling for long-lived applications
When building long-lived applications, such as those running within containers or
on Amazon EC2 instances, instantiate a Driver object once and then reuse that
object for the lifetime of the application. The Driver object is thread
safe, and the overhead of initializing it is considerable.
Connection handling for AWS Lambda
Bolt drivers are not recommended for use within AWS Lambda functions, because of their connection overhead and management requirements. Use the HTTPS endpoint instead.
