Very basic OrientDB/TinkerPop property graph DB questions

Question

Thanks in advance for your patience with what may be an array of stupid questions.

I'm re-engineering a legacy enterprise application from the ground up and have down-selected to OrientDB for the underlying graph database. After perusing the OrientDB Google group, the various Wikis, etc I am left more than a little confused about what best practices apply and where to get started. More specifically:

1. Am I correct in my understanding that with 1.6.4 (or later) I will need to leverage TinkerPop Blueprints in order to build a graph database?
2. If so, am I obliged to use Gremlin or is the extended SQL provided by OrientDB still available to me?
3. Should I, ideally, be creating the initial (non-embedded) database programatically through the TinkerPop APIs or establishing the structure via OrientDB's native console?
4. Does a blueprints implementation preclude me from using clusters or classes (can I still use the inheritance structure built into OrientDB)?
5. Given that I won't be using an embedded database, is Rexster obligatory for a TinkerPop-based implementation?
6. Has anyone heard wind of a Rexster kibble to provide Cypher support? :D

The majority of my experience to date has been with MS SQL and Neo4J (as is likely implied by my questions).

Cheers,

Jon

Answer 1

I've received a response to this question on the OrientDB Google group. I'm going to call it answered, but would still welcome any input anyone may have.

Cheers,

Jon