Four node graphlet and triad enumeration on distributed platforms

Graphlet enumeration is a basic task in graph analysis with many applications. Thus it is important to be able to perform this task within a reasonable amount of time. However, this objective is challenging when the input graph is very large, with millions of nodes and edges. Known solutions are limited in terms of the scale of the graph that they can process. Distributed computing is often proposed as a solution to improve the maximum scale. However, it has to be done carefully to reduce the overhead cost and to really benefit from the distributed solution. We study the enumeration of four-node graphlets in undirected graphs and triads in directed graphs using a distributed platform. We propose an efficient distributed solution that significantly surpasses the existing solutions on the scale and performance. With this method, we are able to process larger graphs that have never been processed before and enumerate quadrillions of graphlets using a modest cluster of machines. Our experimental results show that our solution has a strong machine scalability close to one.