Indexing is fundamental to achieving high-performance graph queries in Geode. As an enterprise-ready graph database implementing the ISO/IEC 39075:2024 GQL standard, Geode provides sophisticated indexing capabilities that enable fast lookups, efficient pattern matching, and optimized query execution across massive graph datasets.

Understanding how to leverage Geode’s indexing strategies can dramatically improve query performance, reduce latency, and scale your graph applications effectively. This comprehensive guide explores indexing concepts, implementation patterns, and optimization techniques specific to Geode’s architecture.

Key Indexing Concepts in Geode

Geode supports multiple index types designed for different access patterns and query workloads:

Label Indexes: Automatically maintained indexes on node and relationship labels enable fast filtering by type. When you query for all nodes with a specific label, Geode uses label indexes to avoid full graph scans.

Property Indexes: Explicit indexes on node or relationship properties accelerate lookups by property values. These are essential for queries that filter by specific property conditions, such as finding users by email address or products by SKU.

Composite Indexes: Indexes spanning multiple properties enable efficient queries with compound predicates. For example, indexing both status and created_at properties together optimizes queries that filter on both dimensions.

Full-Text Indexes: Specialized indexes for text search operations enable fast substring matching, keyword search, and relevance ranking across string properties.

Vector Indexes: HNSW (Hierarchical Navigable Small World) indexes for high-dimensional vector similarity search, crucial for machine learning and recommendation workloads.

How Indexing Works in Geode

Geode’s indexing system is tightly integrated with its query optimizer and execution engine:

Automatic Index Selection: The GQL query optimizer analyzes query patterns and automatically selects the most appropriate indexes. You don’t need to specify index hints in most cases; Geode’s cost-based optimizer makes intelligent decisions based on statistics and cardinality estimates.

Index Maintenance: Indexes are maintained transactionally alongside data modifications. When you insert, update, or delete graph elements, Geode automatically updates all relevant indexes within the same ACID transaction, ensuring consistency.

Covering Indexes: When an index contains all properties referenced in a query, Geode can satisfy the query entirely from the index without accessing the base graph data, significantly reducing I/O operations.

Index Statistics: Geode maintains statistics about index selectivity, cardinality, and distribution to inform query optimization decisions. Statistics are updated incrementally as data changes.

Creating and Managing Indexes

Geode provides GQL-compliant syntax for index management:

-- Create a property index
CREATE INDEX user_email ON :User(email);

-- Create a composite index
CREATE INDEX product_lookup ON :Product(category, status);

-- Create a full-text index for search
CREATE FULLTEXT INDEX article_content ON :Article(title, body);

-- Create a vector index for similarity search
CREATE VECTOR INDEX product_embeddings ON :Product(embedding)
  WITH (dimensions: 384, metric: 'cosine');

-- View all indexes
SHOW INDEXES;

-- Drop an index
DROP INDEX user_email;

Indexing Best Practices

Index Selectively: Don’t index every property. Indexes consume memory and slow down write operations. Focus on properties frequently used in WHERE clauses, JOIN conditions, and ORDER BY operations.

Analyze Query Patterns: Use EXPLAIN and PROFILE to understand how queries access data. Create indexes for queries that perform full graph scans or show high execution times.

-- Analyze query execution
EXPLAIN
MATCH (u:User {email: 'user@example.com'})
RETURN u;

-- Profile query performance
PROFILE
MATCH (u:User)
WHERE u.created_at > '2024-01-01'
RETURN u.email, u.name;

Consider Cardinality: Indexes are most effective on high-cardinality properties (many distinct values). Low-cardinality properties like boolean flags or status enums benefit less from indexing.

Composite Index Order: For composite indexes, place the most selective property first. If querying by category alone is common, create both a single-column index on category and a composite index (category, status).

Monitor Index Usage: Regularly review index usage statistics to identify unused indexes that consume resources without providing value.

Performance Optimization Techniques

Index-Only Queries: Structure queries to use covering indexes when possible. Instead of retrieving all node properties, select only indexed properties:

-- Less efficient: requires base data access
MATCH (u:User)
WHERE u.email = 'user@example.com'
RETURN u;

-- More efficient: uses covering index
MATCH (u:User)
WHERE u.email = 'user@example.com'
RETURN u.email, u.user_id;

Prefix Matching: For string properties, indexes support efficient prefix matching. Use STARTS WITH for indexed prefix searches:

-- Efficient with index
MATCH (p:Product)
WHERE p.sku STARTS WITH 'PROD-2024'
RETURN p;

Range Queries: Property indexes support efficient range scans for numeric and temporal data:

-- Indexed range query
MATCH (e:Event)
WHERE e.timestamp BETWEEN '2024-01-01' AND '2024-12-31'
RETURN e
ORDER BY e.timestamp;

Troubleshooting Index Performance

Identify Missing Indexes: Use EXPLAIN to check for full graph scans. Look for operations labeled as “NodeScan” or “RelationshipScan” without index usage.

Monitor Index Bloat: Large indexes with many deletions may become fragmented. Geode automatically maintains indexes, but monitoring index size helps identify bloat.

Check Statistics Freshness: Outdated statistics can lead to suboptimal query plans. Geode updates statistics incrementally, but you can manually trigger updates for critical indexes.

Analyze Write Impact: If write performance degrades after adding indexes, measure the overhead. Consider batch operations or asynchronous index updates for write-heavy workloads.

Advanced Indexing Features

Partial Indexes: Index only a subset of nodes matching specific criteria, reducing index size and maintenance cost:

CREATE INDEX active_users ON :User(email)
WHERE status = 'active';

Expression Indexes: Index computed values or function results for queries that filter on derived properties:

CREATE INDEX user_name_lower ON :User(LOWER(name));

Multi-Label Indexes: Optimize queries that filter on multiple labels simultaneously:

CREATE INDEX content_items ON :Article|:Video|:Podcast(published_at);

Integration with Query Optimization

Geode’s cost-based optimizer considers indexes when generating query execution plans:

  1. Cardinality Estimation: The optimizer estimates result set sizes based on index statistics
  2. Index Selection: Multiple candidate indexes are evaluated for cost-effectiveness
  3. Join Order Optimization: Index availability influences the order of pattern matching operations
  4. Pruning Strategies: Indexes enable early filtering to reduce intermediate result sizes

Use Cases and Patterns

User Lookup Systems: Index email addresses, usernames, and authentication tokens for fast user retrieval in login flows.

Product Catalogs: Index SKUs, categories, and search terms for e-commerce applications.

Time-Series Analysis: Index timestamps for efficient temporal range queries in analytics workloads.

Relationship Traversal: While Geode optimizes relationship traversal by default, indexing relationship properties accelerates filtered traversals:

MATCH (u:User)-[f:FOLLOWS WHERE f.since > '2024-01-01']->(other:User)
RETURN other;

Geospatial Queries: Index location properties for spatial range queries and proximity searches.

  • Query Optimization and Performance Tuning
  • EXPLAIN and PROFILE Analysis
  • Query Patterns and Best Practices
  • Performance Monitoring and Observability
  • Transaction Management and Concurrency
  • Schema Design and Data Modeling

Further Reading

  • ISO/IEC 39075:2024 GQL Standard: Index specifications
  • Query Performance Optimization Guide
  • Enterprise Deployment Best Practices
  • Monitoring and Observability Documentation
  • Geode Architecture and Internals

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