Signing up for Neo4j Aura is a straightforward process that allows you to get started with a fully managed graph database in the cloud.
In this lesson, you will learn how to:
-
Create a Neo4j Aura account
-
Set up your first Aura Professional instance
Step 1: Visit the Neo4j Aura Website
Go to link: console.neo4j.io in your web browser. This is the official portal for managing Neo4j Aura databases.
On this page, you will see options to sign up for a new account or log in if you already have one.
Click on the Sign Up button to create a new account.
Step 2: Create Your Account
After clicking the Sign Up button, you will be directed to the registration form. After filling in your email address, you will have to confirm your identity before proceeding, to make sure it is a valid email address and not a bot or impersonation.
Once your email is verified, you will be prompted to create a password:
After setting up your password, you will be asked to provide some additional information, such as your name and company (if applicable). Fill in the required fields and click Next.
Step 3: Personalize Your Experience
After creating your account, you will be prompted to personalize your experience by selecting your interests and how you plan to use Neo4j Aura. This helps Neo4j tailor the experience to your needs.
As you select your interests, you will see instead of a progress bar, a graph getting built indicating how far along you are in the setup process. Once you have made your selections, click Next to proceed.
Step 4: Set Up Your First Aura Professional Instance
After setting up your account, you will be directed to the region and cloud provider selection page. Here, you can either choose to create your first Aura Professional instance, or skip and create a free instance.
Choosing the right location
When creating a new database instance, you need to choose the right location for your instance.
For most Aura tiers, you can choose from multiple cloud providers (AWS, GCP, Azure) and regions within those providers.
You should consider the following questions:
-
Where is your application running / going to run?
-
What cloud provider do / did you pick for your application?
-
Can you mirror the choices of the first two questions for your database?
If your application is hosted on AWS in the same region, you should choose the same region for your database instance to minimize latency and ensure optimal performance, as well as data security and compliance.
Estimating size requirements
Unless all this information is available, the best you can do is an estimate. This is less of a problem for Aura as database instances can be resized through the Aura console with a few clicks.
For most Aura tiers, you must pick memory size (RAM) and memory / storage ratio (1/2, 1/4, 1/8).
As an example, if you pick 2GB memory, this corresponds to 4GB storage. You can increase the storage to 8GB (1/4) or 16GB (1/8) at additional cost.
For Aura Free, size choices are hidden from you, but the database limits (200,000 nodes and 400,000 relationships) typically need between 3GB and 4GB of storage.
Sizing calculation
You can visit the Capacity Planning Example for a detailed example of how to calculate the right size for your database.
After this, you will be presented with a set of credentials, that would be needed to connect to your database. Make sure to save these credentials in a secure location, as you will need them to access your database later.
Step 5: Access Your Professional Aura Instance
Once your instance is set up, you can access it through the Neo4j Aura console. From here, you can manage your database, run queries, and monitor performance:
Summary
In this lesson, you learned how to sign up for a Neo4j Aura account and set up your first Aura Professional instance. You are now ready to start exploring the capabilities of Neo4j Aura and building graph-based applications.
In the next lesson, you will explore how to create and manage a free Aura instance, as well as how to connect to an existing one