Graph databases have become essential tools for managing complex and interconnected data, which is common in areas like social networks, bioinformatics, and recommendation systems. Unlike traditional relational databases, graph databases offer a more natural way to model and query intricate relationships, making them particularly effective for applications that demand flexibility and efficiency in handling interconnected data. Despite their increasing use, graph databases face notable challenges. One significant issue is the irregular nature of graph data, often marked by structural sparsity, such as in its adjacency matrix representation, which can lead to inefficiencies in data read and write operations. Other obstacles include the high computational demands of traversal-based queries, especially within large-scale networks, and complexities in managing transactions in distributed graph environments. Additionally, the reliance on traditional centralized architectures limits the scalability of Online Transaction Processing (OLTP), creating bottlenecks due to contention, CPU overhead, and network bandwidth constraints. This paper presents a thorough survey of graph databases. It begins by examining property models, query languages, and storage architectures, outlining the foundational aspects that users and developers typically engage with. Following this, it provides a detailed analysis of recent advancements in graph database technologies, evaluating these in the context of key aspects such as architecture, deployment, usage, and development, which collectively define the capabilities of graph database solutions.

翻译：图数据库已成为管理复杂互联数据的关键工具，这类数据在社交网络、生物信息学和推荐系统等领域十分常见。与传统关系型数据库不同，图数据库提供了一种更自然的方式来建模和查询复杂关系，使其在处理互联数据需要灵活性和效率的应用中尤为有效。尽管使用日益广泛，图数据库仍面临显著挑战。一个重要问题是图数据的不规则性，通常表现为结构稀疏性（例如在其邻接矩阵表示中），这可能导致数据读写操作效率低下。其他障碍包括基于遍历的查询（尤其是在大规模网络中）的高计算需求，以及在分布式图环境中管理事务的复杂性。此外，对传统集中式架构的依赖限制了在线事务处理的可扩展性，从而因争用、CPU开销和网络带宽限制产生瓶颈。本文对图数据库进行了全面综述。首先考察属性模型、查询语言和存储架构，概述了用户和开发者通常接触的基础方面。随后，详细分析了图数据库技术的最新进展，并从架构、部署、使用和开发等共同定义图数据库解决方案能力的关键维度对这些进展进行了评估。