Neo4j on Kubernetes

This is an example project to run Neo4j on Kubernetes, and also includes a Spring Boot backend service to interact with the Neo4j database.

Data set

Data is maintained and pulled from a public data source. Load scripts and more information is available in this data set Github repository. An example of the data model is shown below.

Config and setup

The my-neo4j.values.yaml file contains the configuration for the Neo4j Helm chart. The deployment.yaml file contains the configuration for the Spring Boot service. Sample files for each are included in this repository.

You will need to fill in the Neo4j credential values.

Running and testing this project

To run the project, you will need to have a Kubernetes cluster running. You can use Minikube, Docker Desktop (what I used), or any other Kubernetes cluster you have access to.

# Spin up Neo4j on Kubernetes
helm install my-neo4j-release neo4j/neo4j --namespace neo4j -f my-neo4j.values.yaml
# Deploy the Spring Boot service
kubectl apply -f deployment.yaml

# Check the status of the deployments
kubectl get all

You can check the data in the database by opening a Browser tab to the Neo4j Browser at http://localhost:7474/.

To test the Spring Boot application service, you can use the following commands:

http :30080/hello
http :30080/authors/Stephen%20King
http :30080/authors/Jane%20Austen
http :30080/authors/J%2ER%2ER%2E%20Tolkien
http :30080/authors/J%2EK%2E%20Rowling
http :30080/authors/Timothy%20Zahn

Note: The above commands are using the HTTPie command line tool, but you can use curl similarly.

Shutting down

Run the following commands to shut down the Neo4j cluster and the application.

# Shut down cluster
helm uninstall my-neo4j-release
# Delete the application deployment
kubectl delete deploy kube-neo4j-books

# Not required unless wanting to clean up resources
kubectl delete pvc --all --namespace neo4j

Presentation

Coming soon!

Resources

• Deploy Kubernetes with Docker Desktop: https://docs.docker.com/desktop/kubernetes/

• Quickstart Neo4j docs: https://neo4j.com/docs/operations-manual/current/kubernetes/quickstart-standalone/

• Diagram for deploying Neo4j on Kubernetes: https://neo4j.com/docs/operations-manual/current/kubernetes/quickstart-standalone/server-setup/

• Guide to deploy SB app to Kubernetes: https://spring.io/guides/gs/spring-boot-kubernetes