Being part of a flagship project that brings next-generation Inflight-Entertainment systems onto passenger aircrafts, Michael Wilmes tackles the operational aspects of managing IT systems in flight, on ground and anywhere in between. He will give insight on what key factors made Neo4j the database of choice during development of a custom tailored asset management application and how Neo4j was integrated using technologies like Spring, Thymeleaf, Bootstrap and D3.js.

1. > Inflight Asset Management
Nov 14, 2013

2. About us
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Inflight Asset Management | Michael Wilmes

3. Passenger Airlines
§ Lufthansa - leading group of European quality carriers
§ more than 103 million passengers in 2012
Logistics
§ Lufthansa Cargo AG - One of the world’s leading cargo
airlines
§ 1,724 million tons of freight / mail shipped in 2012
IT Services
§ Lufthansa Systems AG - One of the leading IT service
providers for the airline and aviation industry
§ Around 450 customers worldwide, more than 300 airlines
Catering
Maintenance, Repair
& Overhaul (MRO)
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§ LSG Sky Chefs - The world’s largest airline caterer
§ Provider of integrated inflight service solutions
§ Lufthansa Technik - worldwide leading provider of
maintenance, repair and overhaul services for civil aircraft
§ More than 33 operating subsidiaries and affiliates
Inflight Asset Management | Michael Wilmes

4. Michael Wilmes
Solution architect @ BoardConnect
► michael.wilmes@lhsystems.com
► @theeagermichael
Nov 14, 2013
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Inflight Asset Management | Michael Wilmes

5. The product
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6. Nov 14, 2013
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7. The problem
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8. Licenses
Content Items
Virtual Containers
Aircrafts
Business Rules
Hardware
Lifecycle information
Software
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Configuration
Inflight Asset Management | Michael Wilmes

9. How to keep track of
what we rolled out?
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10. The questions
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Inflight Asset Management | Michael Wilmes

11. Database
How to efficiently store and receive
complex data maintaining high performance?
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12. Access
How to provide easy access to data
backend via web proven technologies?
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13. Visualization
How to visualize complex networks and
dependencies?
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14. The attitude
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15. Radical inclusion
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Inflight Asset Management | Michael Wilmes

16. Acceptance
Accept the complexity and nature of the product.
Welcome data were possible.
Sense might not be immediately apparent.
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17. Embrace change.
Product develops at a rapid change. Live with it.
Welcome connectivity.
API first. Make the added value accessible.
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18. The approach
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Inflight Asset Management | Michael Wilmes

19. Features and
Requirements
Realtime access by
aircraft installations
and BC suppliers
Asset
Management
Operational
Database
Constant performance
independant of query
type and size of
dependency trees
Horizontal scaleout possibility
Schema agility to
easily accomodate
product
innovations.
Complete Real-World
view of BoardConnect
environment as it IS.
Master Data
Management
Configuration
Database
Realtime access for
unattended device
configuration
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20. Does the problem nature really differ from social networks?
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21. Actually NO.
Big value lies in the relation of information.
Modern approachs targeting the social network world
might be equally well suited to asset management
problem scopes.
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Inflight Asset Management | Michael Wilmes

22. The architecture
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Inflight Asset Management | Michael Wilmes

23. Aircraft
Data
Feed
misc.
ETL
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Media
Library
Asset
Management
UI
Inflight Asset Management | Michael Wilmes
REST
API
CMDB
CMS

24. > Development goals
easy deployment
ready for use instantly,
grows with the needs
WebService
Business Logic
low maintenance efforts,
low cost development
maps reality 1:1
easy visualization
whiteboard friendly
(instant documentation)
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Embedded
Database
embraces change

25. The good thing?
§ We start from
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26. Nov 14, 2013
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Inflight Asset Management | Michael Wilmes
(this is a blank page)

27. Spring Framework
Why?
§ Great community backing
§ Approaching today‘s problems
(NOSQL, Enterprise-Integration, REST, Big Data)
§ Lightweight deployment
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Inflight Asset Management | Michael Wilmes

28. Neo4j Embedded
Why?
§ Puts the database back into the application domain.
§ Induces no additional restraints.
§ Avoiding dead-ends. Provides capable foundation for
future queries not yet foreseen.
§ „What you see is what it is“. Transparency.
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Inflight Asset Management | Michael Wilmes

29. Neo4j Embedded
Why?
A perfect match for the radical inclusion paradigm
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30. Spring Data Neo4j
Why?
§ Allows for POJO domain based development
§ Natural extension of the Spring Data provided
programming model
§ Provides a high level uniform access to the
persistence layer while allowing core-API fallback
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31. Spring Data REST
Why?
§ Exposes domain objects using auto generated full
fledged CRUD controllers
§ Supports custom DAO queries
§ Keeps you API on par with your ever evolving
domain model
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32. Thymeleaf
Why?
§ Natural templates. Finally.
§ It‘s HTML you write. Well layed out. Standalone.
§ Easy integration with Spring MVC
§ Easy to learn and well documented
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33. Boostrap
Why?
§ Rapid UI development using CSS
§ Fallback to JS where needed
§ Responsive Web Design
§ Well established framework
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34. D3.js
Why?
§ Because it‘s awesome
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35. > Layered architecture, self containment
Neo4j Embedded
Spring Data Neo4j
Spring Framework
Business Layer
Spring MVC
Spring Data REST
Thymeleaf
Bootstrap
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D3.js
Inflight Asset Management | Michael Wilmes
}
.jar

36. The application
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37. > Oh my.... A graph!
D3.js / Autocomplete
Direct access (AJAX)
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springdata
REST

38. Implementation
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39. > Use rich relations where possible
X
Aircraft-[:CONTAINS]->AccessPoint
Aircraft-[:CONTAINS]->Server
Aircraft-[r:CONTAINS_BCAP]->AccessPoint
Aircraft-[r:CONTAINS_BCS]->Server
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40. > Graph aware POJO using SDN
@NodeEntity
public abstract class AbstractAsset implements Asset, LastModifiedDateAware, Authored {
@GraphId
private Long nodeId;
@NotNull
@Indexed(unique = true, level=Level.INSTANCE)
private String uuid;
@NotNull
@Size(min = 3, max = 50)
@Indexed(level=Level.INSTANCE)
private String name;
private Date dateLastModified;
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41. > SDN provided ApplicationEventHandler (e.g. setting lifecycle properties)
@Override
public void onApplicationEvent(BeforeSaveEvent event) ... {
LastModifiedDateAware entity = (LastModifiedDateAware) event.getEntity();
entity.setDateLastModified(new Date());
…
}
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42. ...things get even better with
Neo4j 2.0 and SDN 3.0, especially
§ labels
§ optional constrains
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43. > Thymeleaf integration
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44. Query examples
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45. > Single question ! Single query ! Instant response…
► What aircrafts have to be supplied with a new SSD in order to remove the movie from being shown
to public?
► Are all licenses present that are needed for playback of all movies inside the
freshly inserted hard drive on aircraft?
match (bcs)-[:INSTALLED_IN]-()-[:CLONED_FROM]->()-[CONTAINS*]->(video)-->(license)
where bcs.name=…
return license
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46. > Demo
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47. Q&A
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48. > Ressources
Lufthansa Systems – http://www.lhsystems.com
Neo4j – http://www.neo4j.org
Spring – http://spring.io
Spring Data Neo4j - http://www.neo4j.org/develop/spring
Spring Data REST - http://projects.spring.io/spring-data-rest
Thymeleaf - http://www.thymeleaf.org
D3.js - http://d3js.org
Bootstrap - http://getbootstrap.com
Nov 14, 2013
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Inflight Asset Management | Michael Wilmes

49. Michael Wilmes
Solution architect @ BoardConnect
► michael.wilmes@lhsystems.com
► @theeagermichael
Nov 14, 2013
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Inflight Asset Management | Michael Wilmes