Visualisation of Relational Database Structure by Graph Database

Abstract

Most IT systems rely on dedicated databases, and most of these databases are relational. The advantages of such databases are well known and widely reported in literature. Unfortunately, attempts to identify the topology of links in the relational model produced by iterative development or administrative enhancements are often hampered by the large number of tables that make up the database and the lack of comprehensive technical documentation. Analysis of the model by someone other than its designer requires substantial effort. The aim of the presented work is therefore to develop an application for effective presentation of the database structure in the form of a directed graph. The main assumption was that a graph-oriented database environment would be used. This paper presents the RELATIONS-Graph application developed by the authors. This application automatically generates a directed graph which presents links between tables and attributes which constitute a relational database. The RELATIONS-Graph application can also scan the generated graph in order to discover links between selected tables and columns. This solution has been applied to SQL Server 2014 SP1 DBMS using the Microsoft .NET technology and the Neo4j graph database, also by .NET API. The RELATIONS-Graph application was developed in C#, an object-oriented programming language.