Neo4j transforms Aura DBMS with new enhancements & features

Neo4j has announced a significant transformation of its Aura cloud database management system (DBMS) portfolio, aimed at making it easier for enterprises to try, build, and accelerate graph in production for various workloads or use cases.

The changes are in response to increasing growth and demand for the company's cloud offering, driven by the critical role of graph databases in generative AI (GenAI) and advanced analytics applications.

Gartner has projected that by 2025, graph technologies will be used in 80% of data and analytics innovations, up from 10% in 2021. A statement in Gartner's Hype Cycle report for Generative AI mentions that "RAG techniques in an enterprise context suffer from problems related to the veracity and completeness of responses caused by limitations in the accuracy of retrieval, contextual understanding, and response coherence.”

Neo4j made the announcement on the eve of its GraphSummit enterprise conference in New York, reinforcing its market position as a leading native graph database provider. The transformation includes a raft of new capabilities and offerings aimed at enhancing the enterprise experience.

New features include an updated Aura console with a GenAI co-pilot to help administer, manage, ingest, model, and visualise data efficiently across all Neo4j offerings and tools, allowing administrators and developers to interact with these tools in natural language, overcoming the need for expertise in the Cypher query language.

Additionally, the company has introduced NeoDash, a no/low-code interactive dashboard builder that facilitates the creation of maps, graphs, bar and line charts, tables, and other visuals. NeoDash, previously part of Neo4j Labs, is now a fully supported offering for enterprises.

Neo4j has also launched a self-serve offering, Neo4j AuraDB Business Critical, at a 20% lower price point than the traditional AuraDB Enterprise offering. This new tier is designed for highly available workloads requiring advanced security. For customers needing dedicated environments, the existing AuraDB Enterprise has been renamed AuraDB Virtual Dedicated Cloud.

The company has achieved a 15-fold scale improvement in real-time read capacity, enabling the processing of significantly more real-time data within each cluster without compromising on latency or performance, which is essential for data-intensive analytics workloads as customer data volumes increase.

Furthermore, Neo4j introduced advanced enterprise control, audit, and compliance capabilities, including Customer Managed Encryption Keys and Security Log Forwarding, ensuring robust data protection and real-time security log auditing. Earlier this year, Neo4j achieved SOC 2 Type 2 and HIPAA compliance.

Alvaro Rodrigues, Manager of Cloud Services and IT Infrastructure at Qualicorp, commented, "Neo4j's fully managed Aura database has significantly reduced the operational effort and helps to avoid any disruptions by eliminating the need for manual version upgrades or updates at the database level, OS level, or security patches. Qualicorp is excited by Neo4j's latest enhancements to its graph database solutions and its potential to take insights to the next level."

Aadil Dowlut, Ph.D., Data Science Chapter Lead at Spark NZ, remarked, "The rapid development and evolution of graph database technology has presented an extraordinary opportunity to propel our machine learning and GenAI solutions forward. These advancements hold the potential to revolutionise our data organisation and connectivity, unlocking unprecedented levels of insight and decision-making. By seamlessly integrating graph databases into our AI models, we can significantly enhance the grounding of large language models (LLMs). This integration ensures that our models generate responses which are rooted in real-world data, delivering contextually accurate and actionable insights across the organisation."

Chris Jangareddy, Managing Director of AI, GenAI and Data Engineering at Deloitte Consulting, stated, "As business leaders embrace Generative AI, Neo4j's newest capabilities help enrich our clients with more accurate and contextually rich business results. Our relationship with Neo4j is just one more demonstration of Deloitte's commitment to building our AI ecosystem of alliances to give our clients access to the leading-edge technologies that can help them realise competitive advantage."

Sudhir Hasbe, Chief Product Officer at Neo4j, said, "Today's announcement marks a pivotal leap forward in our mission to empower enterprises with the industry's most robust, scalable, and performant graph database management solution. Simultaneously, these innovations lower adoption barriers for graph technology and GraphRAG for GenAI, enabling organisations to push the envelope on what's possible for their data and their business."