Storing Hypergraph-Based Data Models in Non-Hypergraph Data Storage and Applications for Information Systems

Abstract

Data structures and especially the relationship among the data entities have changed in the last couple of years. The network-like graph representations of data-model are becoming more and more common nowadays, since they are more suitable to depict these, than the well-established relational data-model. The graphs can describe large and complex networks — like social networks — but also capable of storing rich information about complex data. This was mostly of relational data-model trait before. This also can be achieved with the use of the knowledge representation tool called “hypergraphs”. To utilize the possibilities of this model, we need a practical way to store and process hypergraphs. In this paper, we propose a way by which we can store hypergraphs model in the SAP HANA in-memory database system which has a “Graph Core” engine besides the relational data model. Graph Core has many graph algorithms by default however it is not capable to store or to work with hypergraphs neither are any of these algorithms specifically tailored for hypergraphs either. Hence in this paper, besides the case study of the two information systems, we also propose pseudo-code level algorithms to accommodate hypergraph semantics to process our IS model.