In the previous lesson, you learned about Neo4j Aura and how it differs from self-managed Neo4j databases.
In this lesson, you will learn about the different Aura tiers available and how to select the right tier for your specific use case.
Selecting the right tier
Neo4j Aura offers four different tiers, each designed for different stages of your project development and business needs.
![Aura tiers][tiers](images/02_aura_tiers.png)
Aura Free is designed for experimentation and learning.
You can use Aura Free when your graph has fewer than 200,000 nodes and fewer than 400,000 relationships, and you don’t need high availability.
This tier costs nothing and gives you a way to test Neo4j without any financial commitment.
Aura Professional is designed for production applications with moderate requirements.
You can use Aura Professional when you need more storage space, want to choose your cloud provider (AWS, GCP, or Azure), and need daily backups.
This tier requires payment but still uses a single instance architecture.
Aura Business Critical is designed for enterprise applications that require high availability.
You can use Aura Business Critical when you need guaranteed uptime, role-based access control (RBAC), single sign-on (SSO), and hourly backups.
This tier provides a multi-availability zone cluster architecture for maximum reliability.
Aura Virtual Dedicated Cloud is designed for applications with strict compliance and security requirements.
You can use Aura Virtual Dedicated Cloud when you need dedicated infrastructure, customer-managed encryption keys (CMEK), and VPC isolation.
This tier provides the highest level of security and compliance features.
Check your understanding
Making the Right Choice
Which one of the following tiers is the right choice for you if you are exploring and learning about graph databases?
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✓ Aura Free
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❏ Aura Professional
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❏ Aura Business Critical
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❏ Aura Virtual Dedicated Cloud
Hint
Think about the features and limitations of each tier.
Solution
Aura Free is the best choice for exploring and learning about graph databases because it provides a fully managed Neo4j instance with limited resources at no cost. This allows you to experiment and learn without incurring expenses. Aura Professional is suitable for small to medium-sized applications with moderate requirements. Aura Business Critical is for high availability needs, and Aura Virtual Dedicated Cloud is for strict compliance and security requirements.
Understanding the Differences
Which factors should you consider when choosing between the different tiers of Aura?
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✓ Size limitations
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✓ Security and compliance requirements
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✓ Architecture (single instance vs. cluster)
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✓ Payment methods (Pay-As-You-Go vs. prepaid)
Hint
Check the feature comparison table to see the differences in architecture and payment methods between the tiers.
Solution
The correct factors to consider when choosing between the different tiers of Aura are: * Size limitations * Security and compliance requirements * Architecture (single instance vs. cluster) * Payment methods (Pay-As-You-Go vs. prepaid)
Summary
In this lesson, you learned about the different tiers available on Neo4j Aura and how to select the right tier for your use case.
In the next module, you will learn how to determine the costs associated with running an Aura instance, and how to manage those costs effectively.