Configuring data-sources: Alternative IDs

When you save a visualization in Linkurious Enterprise, only the node and edge identifier are persisted in the user-data store, along with position and style information. When a visualization is loaded, the node and edge identifiers are used to reload the actual node and edge data from the graph database.

If you need to re-generate your graph database from scratch, the graph database will probably generate new identifiers for all nodes and edges, breaking all references to nodes and edges in existing visualizations.

Using a property as a stable identifier

You can configure Linkurious Enterprise to use a node or edge property as stable identifiers. Once set-up, Linkurious Enterprise will use the given property as identifier instead of using the identifiers generated by the database.

Thank to this strategy, visualizations will be robust to graph re-generation.

Notice that the properties used as identifier should be indexed by the database to allow for a fast lookup by value.

Alternative identifiers configuration

To use alternative node and edge identifiers, edit your data-source database configuration in the configuration file (linkurious/data/config/production.json):

Example of alternative identifier configuration with Neo4j:

{
  "dataSources": [
    {
      "graphdb": {
        "vendor": "neo4j",
        "url": "http://127.0.0.1:7474/",
        "alternativeNodeId": "STABLE_NODE_PROPETY_NAME",
        "alternativeEdgeId": "STABLE_EDGE_PROPETY_NAME"
      }
      // [...] 
    }
  ]
}

Configuring alternative ids indices is only possible with Neo4j 3.5.1 and above. If you plan on using a compatible Neo4J version and alternative ids, we recommend configuring alternative ids indices.

To achieve better performance with alternative Ids is recommended to configure indices for alternative node and edge Ids.

Refer to the documentation specific to Neo4j on how to configure these indices.

Stable sourceKey

Linkurious Enterprise generates a unique identifier for data-source, based on internal information from the data-source. This data-source identifiers (called the sourceKey) is used to identify all user-data (visualizations etc.) that belongs to a data-source.

When re-generating a Neo4j graph database, for example, the sourceKey will change. In order to avoid breaking all references to existing visualizations, it is possible to set manually the sourceKey of a data-source.

Before re-generating the graph database, go to the Admin > Sources menu:

In the sources administration panel, find the Key value for your data-source (e.g. 1c3490bd) and copy it.

Then, edit the configuration file (linkurious/data/config/production.json) and set the key manualSourceKey for your data-source:

{
  "dataSources": [
    {
      "manualSourceKey": "1c3490bd",
      "graphdb": {
        "vendor": "neo4j",
        "url": "http://127.0.0.1:7474/"
      }
      // [...] 
    }
  ]
}