From 800be6d3430cd4c651754284658740020b3e4e8a Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Jeffrey Phillips Freeman <jeffrey.freeman@syncleus.com>
Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2014 14:35:11 -0500
Subject: [PATCH] Added an initial version of the README.md file.

Issue: GRL-6
Change-Id: Ie75ca093d3a7ebac53f6fe33b2024efaed840603
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+# GRAIL
+_Graph Represented Algorithm Implementation Layer_
+
+GRAIL is an Algorithm Implementation layer that allows arbitrary algorithms to be backed, and executed from, a graph
+database. The backing graph database can be either an on-disk server instance or a purely local in-memory instance. This
+allows generic tools to be interfaced to accomplish an assortment of extensions such as: distributed processing,
+visualizations, indexing, graph traversal, [SPARQL](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARQL) queries and much more.
+
+GRAIL uses a native [TinkerPop](http://www.tinkerpop.com) stack, this means it can support virtually every graph
+database available to you. A few examples of supported Graph Databases are as follows:
+
+* [Titan](http://thinkaurelius.github.io/titan/)
+* [Neo4j](http://neo4j.com)
+* [OrientDB](http://www.orientechnologies.com/orientdb/)
+* [MongoDB](http://www.mongodb.org)
+* [Oracle NoSQL](http://www.oracle.com/us/products/database/nosql/overview/index.html)
+* [TinkerGraph](https://github.com/tinkerpop/blueprints/wiki/TinkerGraph)
+
+TinkerPop also provides several tools which can be used to work with GRAIL backed Algorithms including:
+
+* **Furnace** - Graph analysis utilities
+* **Frames** - An object-to-graph mapping similar to ORM for relational databases
+* **Pipes** - A data-flow framework for splitting, merging, filtering, and transforming of data. 
+* **Gremlin** - A graph query language
+* **Blueprints** - A standard graph API
+
+Finally, depending on the choice of graph database backend it is possible to utilize any of the following features
+if provided by the backend.
+
+* Elastic and linear scaling capabilities
+* [ACID](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACID) and [BASE](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eventual_consistency) consistency models
+* Distributed data, replication, high availability, and fault tolerance
+* [Apache Hadoop](http://hadoop.apache.org) Integration providing graph analytics, reporting, and ETL features
+* Indexing and search utilities including: [ElasticSearch](http://www.elasticsearch.org/overview/elasticsearch), [Solr](http://lucene.apache.org/solr/), and [Lucene](http://lucene.apache.org)
+
+It is important to note that a Titan backend supports all the above features.
+
+## Obtaining the Source
+
+The official source repository for GRAIL is located on the Syncleus Gerrit instance and can be cloned using the
+following command.
+
+```
+git clone http://gerrit.syncleus.com/GRAIL-core
+```
+
+We also maintain a GitHub clone of the official repository which can be found
+[here](https://github.com/Syncleus/GRAIL-core). Finally Syncleus also hosts an instance of GitLab which also hosts a
+clone of the repository which can be found [here](http://gitlab.syncleus.com/syncleus/GRAIL-core).
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