---
title: "Aerospike Graph Service architecture"
description: "Learn about the architecture of Aerospike Graph Service (AGS), including its components, Gremlin access, and data sto..."
---

# Aerospike Graph Service architecture

> For the complete documentation index see: [llms.txt](https://aerospike.com/docs/llms.txt)
> 
> All documentation pages available in markdown.

## Overview

This page describes the architecture of Aerospike Graph Service (AGS).

### High-level structure

-   Aerospike Database is the underlying persistence layer for AGS.
-   AGS uses [Gremlin query language](https://tinkerpop.apache.org/gremlin.html) for data access.
-   AGS implements [Apache TinkerPop](https://tinkerpop.apache.org/), an open source graph computing framework, for online transaction processing (OLTP) and online analytical processing (OLAP) graph queries.

## AGS components

The AGS components consist of:

-   an application layer
-   a query language layer
-   a data storage layer

 ![Aerospike Graph Service architecture](https://aerospike.com/docs/_astro/deployment.DHee6ZhO_g0DuC.png)

1.  The application layer may consist of multiple applications or application threads, using drivers in one or more programming languages. See [Gremlin Drivers and Variants](https://tinkerpop.apache.org/docs/current/reference/#gremlin-drivers-variants) for more information.
2.  On the query layer, applications communicate with AGS instances through a websocket protocol.
3.  On the data storage layer, Aerospike Database clusters may reside on bare metal, in on-premise servers or in cloud-based installations.

::: note
For optimal performance in production environments, run the three components as separate instances or virtual machines. For development purposes, they can all run on a single machine.
:::

## Database backup

The Aerospike database, which holds your graph data, uses Aerospike’s [backup and restore](https://aerospike.com/docs/database/tools/backup-and-restore/asbackup) tools. We recommend a backup and recovery plan as part of every database deployment. See the [backup](https://aerospike.com/docs/database/tools/backup-and-restore/asbackup) for more information.