Graphs all the way down: Neos 9 in action

In this talk, I will share our experiences implementing a large-scale project based on the Neos 9 beta which started out in the fall of 2023. I will give a brief analysis of our decision-making process for choosing Neos 9, show what went well and present the promises that have not yet been fully delivered in practice. The main part of the presentation focuses on Neos 9’s data architecture, with special emphasis on NodeTypes, Nodes and their serialization through DTOs, as well as the associated caching strategies. I will highlight the challenges we faced during implementation, talk about performance issues and limitations and publishing complications, and how Beta 16 finally brought the decisive breakthrough. In the second part I want to talk about taking the new CR to the next dimension by replacing the current relational database with a graph-database, specifically Neo4j, to make even better use of the magic that is graph data structures and explain the resulting benefits for existing functionalities as well as possible future applications, like the idea of a SpaceTimeGraph to maintain all states and changes within the cr simultaneously in one projection. This talk is aimed at developers and architects who want to know if it's feasible to use Neos 9 and gain deeper insights into the powerful graph functionalities of Neos 9 and harness their full potential for their own projects.