I agree with the entirety of this post. Going in this direction with documentation would help me a lot. best, kai
On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 11:38 PM, Zach White <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Everyone, > > I would find it very helpful if there was some documentation targetted at > sysadmins. Something that gave us a brief overview of what neo4j is (keeping > in mind that most us have not done any java programming, even if we have > experience working with and deploying java apps) and gives us hints on > finding the information that we're looking for. I would say there's two > basic (but very different) needs that the average admin is trying to fill: > > 1. Download and install the software for a user that asks for it > > I've spent the last 2 hours poking around the site and the wiki, but until > I found "Getting Started REST" I had no inkling that there was a standalone > server that could be setup. A user who has asked their sysadmin to "install > neo4j" is most likely to want the RESTful server to query against, since > they would otherwise just download the class files themselves. > > 2. Learn about neo4j prior to a deployment so they can support an > engineering dept that has decided to use neo4j, or so they can sign off on a > decision to use neo4j. > > It is this need that I am trying to fill. > > I spent some time looking over the site, but was only successful in finding > bits and pieces of what I wanted. I finally asked on irc, and was pointed to > the Performance Guide and Configuration Settings page (thanks thobe,) which > helped too, but I'm still feeling a bit lost. > > Here's a list of the types of questions I'm trying to answer (presumably > about the REST API): > > * Is there a preferred way to package this, or am I rolling my own > RPM/debs? > * Can I make the app fit into the FHS, or is running it in a self-contained > directory my only reasonable option? (Reasonable means I don't have to patch > the source code.) > * How do I scale this up? How much RAM will it take before CPU or Disk I/O > are my main bottlenecks? Do I ever have to worry about CPU, or will I run > out of RAM and Disk I/O long before I could think about using all the > processing power in a modern multi-core hyperthreaded processor? > * Can I change configuration options without doing a full restart? > * What are the replication options? Do any of them handle having the > databases in separate geographical areas (say 80-250ms from each other?) > What about periods where connectivity is broken, how does neo4j handle that > situation? > * How do I upgrade neo4j without downtime for end users? (This implies > working master/master replication or the ability to promote a slave > gracefully.) > * What happens if the app dies in a non-clean fashion? (kill -9, OOM, power > lost, SAN catches fire, whatever) > > That covers the "sysadmin" side of the equation, but treats neo4j like a > black box. Most sysadmins will want to interact with the database a little, > since they will likely be asked to look things up or make minor > modifications. The REST API documentation is clear enough to me, but I am > not the average sysadmin. Most of the admins I work with need something a > little more howto and a little less reference. > > A short howto-style narrative explaining how to use curl or poster to query > the root node, follow links, and view properties would go a long towards > giving sysadmins some basic visibility into the DB. Following that up with > some simple examples showing how to pull some basic stats (number of nodes, > number of relationships, size of db, or whatever is exposed) would cover 80% > of what most sysadmins need to get out of the database. > > Finally, in an attempt to bring this too-long email to a close, allow me to > doff my Professional SysAdmin hat and put on my hobbyist programmer fedora. > > I've actually briefly explored using neo4j in a personal project I was > doing, but did not spend long considering it. At the time there was no AJAX > component and I brushed it off with, "just another java database, man I hate > java." (Hey, I said hobbiest, not professional. ;) > > Now that I know about the existence of the AJAX component and the python > module, and have spent a little time looking, the project interests me a lot > more. I could see myself using neo4j as the backend for some of my toy > projects. The same information that you would be providing for sysadmins, > based on what I wrote above, would also be helpful in educating the > hypothetical hobbiest who doesn't know about neo4j yet. > > Perhaps what's needed to assist both groups of users is a FAQ that contains > some of this information and is easier to find. (To find the FAQ I first > looked on the front page of neo4j.org, went to "Documentation," tried the > wiki because nothing else looked right, and finally found the FAQ buried in > the middle of the page.) > > Thanks for reading and considering my suggestion. > > -Zach > _______________________________________________ > Neo mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.neo4j.org/mailman/listinfo/user > _______________________________________________ Neo mailing list [email protected] https://lists.neo4j.org/mailman/listinfo/user
