Concepts
Overview
Neo4j Community Edition is an open-source graph database that offers essential graph features such as ACID transactions, property graph data modeling, and the Cypher query language.
When deployed with Portworx Data Services (PDS) on Kubernetes, Neo4j Community Edition benefits from enhanced automation, persistent storage, and integrated backup and monitoring capabilities—all within a cloud-native, container-based environment.
PDS tracks the official Neo4j Community Edition release lifecycle. You can find the list of supported Neo4j versions here.
As with all PDS, Neo4j is deployed using Kubernetes custom resources and managed by the Deployments Operator via the neo4j resource.
Clustering
Clustering is not supported in Neo4j Community Edition. All deployments are standalone single-node instances.
Replication
Application-Level Replication
Not available
Storage-Level Replication
Although application-level replication is not available, PDS provides fault tolerance through Portworx Enterprise:
Neo4j data is persisted to a Portworx-backed PersistentVolume. The volume can be configured with multiple replicas across Kubernetes worker nodes or availability zones. This ensures data redundancy and supports pod rescheduling during node failures.
Configuration
Neo4j configuration options in PDS are exposed via configuration templates. Common settings include:
-
Heap and page cache sizes
-
Authentication settings
-
Logging levels and file paths
Configuration changes are applied to the container via standard Kubernetes practices. For a full list of tunable options, see the Neo4j Community configuration.
Scaling
Vertical Scaling
PDS supports vertical scaling of Neo4j by resizing the resources allocated to the pod:
- Increase/decrease CPU and memory via the PDS UI or API.
Horizontal Scaling
Horizontal scaling is not supported for Community Edition.
Connectivity
PDS provisions Kubernetes services with options for ClusterIP or LoadBalancer, providing stable and routable access to the Neo4j instance.
Endpoints
| Service Name | Details |
|---|---|
neo-<name>-<namespace>-<pod-id>-vip | Endpoint for each pod |
PDS provides default authentication via the pds user. Connection strings and credentials can be retrieved from the PDS UI.
Backups and Restore
PDS enables seamless backup and restore for Neo4j Community Edition using native tools and persistent storage in offline mode. Full database backups are taken using neo4j-admin and stored on dedicated Portworx volumes, ensuring data durability without impacting performance.
Restores are performed safely to new instances, allowing users to clone environments or recover data with ease. The backup process is automated and integrated with PDS, making it simple to schedule and manage backups through a cloud-native interface.
Monitoring
Monitoring is not supported as of now for Community Edition.