Ask HN: Relational DB to Graph DB?

3 points by mysteriousBag 11 hours ago

I recently began spitballing the idea of creating a companion SaaS app to ServiceNow (https://www.servicenow.com/) that would use a graph DB to model the relationships between all of the logic (JavaScript scripts, mainly) used in a SN instance. The idea is to allow for much easier understanding of how the logic in an instance is connected and what the downstream effects of a change would be.

ServiceNow is built on top of a relational DB so I've been grappling with a schema for the graph and how to best model the relationships. To clarify, the app would be wholly separate from SN and only use a connection to an instance in order to retrieve the base schema and records related to logic.

So, even though I'm not changing the back-end DB of ServiceNow itself, I'm still curious to see if anyone here has moved from a relational DB to a graph DB for their/their company's app. If so, what was the experience like? How did you approach moving from a tabular schema to a graph-based one?

And if anyone here is familiar with ServiceNow's back-end specifically, I'd love to chat (high level) about what I'm trying to accomplish as well.

Thanks!