NODES 2024 Online Developer Conference | November 7, 2024 | Register Today

Neo4j logo

Neo4j AuraDB

Frequently Asked Questions

General

What is Neo4j AuraDB?
Neo4j AuraDB is Neo4j’s fully managed graph database as a service (DBaaS) offering. Neo4j AuraDB is a graph database, purpose built to leverage relationships in data, enabling lightning-fast queries for real-time analytics and insights. AuraDB is reliable, secure and fully automated, allowing you to focus on building graph applications easily without worrying about database management.
What are the different tiers of AuraDB?
AuraDB is available in multiple tiers to meet your organization's needs and use cases. Visit our Pricing page to learn more about the product tiers and compare them.
What does AuraDB Free include?
AuraDB Free is designed for you to rapidly learn, prototype and experiment without any friction or cost. The Free tier includes one AuraDB graph database that scales up to 200k nodes and 400k relationships, that lets you quickly and easily build and test models for small projects. The Free tier is fully-managed, always on with automated upgrades, and you can select one backup snapshot for export at a time. No daily backup offered for seven days. You don’t need a credit card to get started with AuraDB Free. Learn more.
Where is AuraDB available?
AuraDB is available directly from Neo4j or via Cloud Marketplaces. Today, AuraDB Enterprise is available on Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Amazon Web Services (AWS) while AuraDB Free and Professional are available on GCP. AuraDB Enterprise supports all global regions supported by the cloud provider chosen. We plan to expand to other major cloud platforms and make AuraDB broadly accessible.
How is AuraDB different from a relational database?
Neo4j AuraDB is a purpose built, high performance, native graph database engine. It is designed to leverage not only data but also data relationships. While relational databases normalize data into a tabular schema and incurs a cost in relationship storage and performance in the form of JOIN tables, graph databases store data relationships natively and eliminate the cost by the use of pointers. Learn more.
Can I use AuraDB for production?
Yes, AuraDB is designed to be reliable, secure and always on, and can be used for production. Visit our Pricing page to compare the product tiers and select based on your needs.
Is AuraDB ACID (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability) compliant?
Yes, AuraDB is ACID compliant with immediate consistency.
What graph query languages does AuraDB support?
AuraDB supports Cypher as the graph query language. Cypher is an intuitive and simple-yet-powerful graph query language built by Neo4j. On top of Cypher, modern API libraries like GraphQL and Object Graph Mappers ease your application development.
Does AuraDB run on the latest version of Neo4j?
Neo4j AuraDB is built on the latest version of Neo4j and will get the latest features and updates first, while staying backward compatible within a major release version.
How does Neo4j AuraDB compare to Neo4j Cloud Managed Services?
Both Neo4j AuraDB and Neo4j Cloud Managed Services (CMS) are designed to eliminate the underlying infrastructure and operations management for running a database cluster, enabling you to focus on building the app. However, the way they deliver this is fundamentally different:
  • Neo4j CMS is a fully managed, white-glove offering where database operations management is provided by Neo4j experts who have experience in managing some of the largest Neo4j deployments in the world. This service is designed for enterprise customers who want to customize their deployment model, security configuration, contractual terms and service levels to their specific needs. In this offering, Neo4j experts take care of customers database operations inside of a customer’s own data center or virtual private cloud (VPC).
  • Neo4j AuraDB is a cloud database service that allows the user to instantly provision and connect with. It is offered as a cloud service on Neo4j managed cloud infrastructure. All service operations, such as setup, configuration, provisioning, storage and network setups, are fully automated within the service and the user has no access to these system controls.

Pricing

How is AuraDB charged and how much does it cost?
AuraDB has a simple consumption-based pricing model, and is charged based only on the database instance size deployed. The hourly rate depends on the size of the database deployed, as measured by RAM capacity. You are not charged for anything else, including compute, IO, storage or backups, keeping your costs easy to understand and predictable. The price varies for the various tiers of AuraDB. Refer to our Pricing page for more details.
How is AuraDB priced for development, test or QA environments?
There are no pricing tiers for development, test and QA environments. AuraDB is priced the same regardless of environment type.
Will I be charged for backup snapshots?
No, you will not be charged extra for backup snapshots.
Is sales tax associated with AuraDB Professional?
Yes, sales tax may be applied to all orders shipping to MA, NY, TN, TX or WA, and this amount will be updated and added to your order total once you have entered your shipping address. If you are located elsewhere, your jurisdiction may require you to report this purchase and pay the appropriate taxes directly.

Configuration

How do I get started with Neo4j AuraDB?
Anyone can sign up and start with Neo4j AuraDB Professional by visiting www.neo4j.com/aura and filling out user information, selecting a hosting region and database size, providing credit card details and agreeing to the terms and conditions of the service.
What programming languages are supported by AuraDB?
AuraDB lets you connect with a wide variety of programming languages. Neo4j officially supports drivers for .Net, Java, JavaScript, Go and Python. Community contributors provide many more, including PHP, Ruby, R, Erlang, Clojure, C/C++ and more.
Can I import an existing Neo4j database to Neo4j AuraDB?
Yes, you can push your existing Neo4j database into AuraDB with a command-line tool or import from any other data source using CSV as a transfer format.
Can I pause my database operations in Neo4j AuraDB?
At this time, you cannot pause the database while the service is running, However, you can destroy/delete and then recreate the database as many times as you want.
Can I remove my data from Neo4j AuraDB?
Yes, you can remove your data from AuraDB anytime you want.
What happens to my data if I want to leave Neo4j AuraDB?
Because your data is continuously backed up, you can use Neo4j AuraDB’s restore capabilities to generate a copy of your database for your own use, even for a new environment that you manage yourself.
Can I deploy Neo4j AuraDB on my own cloud infrastructure?
No, AuraDB is a fully managed cloud database service hosted and managed in Neo4j’s secure public cloud environment on Google Cloud or AWS, as deployed.
Can I customize my instance hardware configuration (RAM, CPU, Storage)?
At this time, there is no ability for users to customize their instances beyond the choice of available options. Each instance comes with pre-defined RAM, CPU and storage capacity.
How can I pause and resume my AuraDB database?
You can pause / resume your database anytime with just a click from the SETTINGS tab. While paused, your data is stored securely but no queries can be performed. Also, your backup snapshots are available as per the retention policy.

While paused, you can either resume or delete the database, all other operations are suspended. During resume, all your configurations and plugins are automatically restored. For the paid tiers, you can pause a database for up to 30 days, after which point AuraDB automatically resumes the database. For AuraDB Free, a database paused for 90 days is automatically deleted by the service.
Do I save costs while the database is paused?
Yes. Paused databases are charged at a discounted rate of 20% of standard consumption rate. Your data and backups are stored securely as per the retention policy.

Scaling

What instance sizes are available to me?
AuraDB offers a variety of instance sizes to meet your workload demands. AuraDB Professional offers instances from 1GB to 64GB RAM capacity, while AuraDB Enterprise offers instances from 2GB to 384GB RAM instances. Learn more.
How can I scale the AuraDB database?
To scale the AuraDB database, simply choose a larger configuration. Neo4j AuraDB will enable the user to resize the database for increased capacity with no downtime!
What happens when the database outgrows my allocated database size?
You will have access to their memory, CPU and disk usage information. If they exceed the available memory and CPU, their performance will decline, but the database will continue to operate. However, if they exceed the available disk space, the system will allow them to continue to grow to a point. The user will also get an email from Neo4j informing them about the need to scale their database to accommodate their physical graph within three days. After that, if the user still fails to make the changes, Neo4j will do the appropriate resizing for them.

Reliability

How does AuraDB manage backups?
AuraDB performs automatic backups of all your databases at no extra cost. Backups can be restored with a simple click on your console. AuraDB Professional offers daily backups with 7 days retention, while AuraDB Enterprise offers hourly backups with 90 days retention by default.
How do I keep AuraDB’s version up to date?
Neo4j AuraDB keeps users databases up to date with the latest security updates and Neo4j software patches with no downtime. Neo4j AuraDB notifies users when new feature releases of Neo4j are available, and customers can choose exactly when they want to apply them.
Will the service degrade or does it come down to carry out maintenance (backups, patches, etc.)?
Neo4j AuraDB is a highly available DBaaS that requires no maintenance windows. Unlike other cloud database services, Neo4j AuraDB is always on, meaning the service is never interrupted for security updates or software patches. This includes upgrades to patch as well as minor releases.
How does AuraDB assure high availability of the service and the database?
AuraDB is built from the ground up to be a highly available and reliable graph database service for your most critical applications. AuraDB’s architecture is self-monitoring and self-healing, and is built on resilient and durable service components on trusted public cloud infrastructure. AuraDB Enterprise offers a 99.95% availability SLA.
Does AuraDB have maintenance windows or scheduled downtime?
No, AuraDB does not have any scheduled maintenance windows or downtime. It is designed to be always on and available, and all upgrades and patches are automatically applied in the background without any service interruption or degradation.

Security

How secure is Neo4j AuraDB?
Neo4j AuraDB is a highly-secure service where data is protected with pre-configured security features for authentication and encryption. AuraDB provides:
  • Secure authentication: All access is secured by your unique access credentials known only to you. Database access credentials are not stored by, nor accessible to Neo4j staff.
  • End-to-end encryption: All network traffic is encrypted using Transport Layer Security (TLS), as well as data-at-rest encryption using encrypted storage volumes.
  • VPC isolation (AuraDB Enterprise only): The environment is fully isolated with dedicated cloud infrastructure to ensure privacy and security.
  • Role-based access control (AuraDB Enterprise only): With custom roles and granular access permissions, even at a node level, you get fine-grained control to help meet your compliance and data governance requirements.
Learn more about our cloud security.
Is AuraDB compliant with privacy regulations?
As an ISO 27001 certified organization, Neo4j is committed to supporting compliance with data protection laws and regulations, such as the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), throughout our services.
Is AuraDB HIPAA compliant?
Currently, AuraDB is not HIPAA compliant.
Is AuraDB data stored local to the cloud region?
All your data stays local and ensures you comply with regional data protection regulations.

Support

What support is included with Neo4j AuraDB?
AuraDB Enterprise includes 24x7 premium support with 1-hour SEV-1 response time. AuraDB Professional includes best-effort support with no defined support SLA.
How can I learn more about the roadmap for AuraDB?
Right from within your AuraDB console, you can learn about the features that have been widely requested and also input your requests for AuraDB features you'd like to see.