Starting with Neo4j 1.9 the constructors for EmbeddedGraphDatabase and HighlyAvailableGraphDatabase were deprecated. The recommended way to instantiate those from Java is by using factory classes as documented in the reference manual. In the case of HighlyAvailableGraphDatabase use a different factory class HighlyAvailableGraphDatabaseFactory.

If you’re using Spring for wiring components or Spring Data Neo4j then it’s up to the container to build up the GraphDatabaseService for you. Doing this with factories is a little bit more tricky but I’ve create two gists.

Creating a EmbeddedGraphDatabase

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<beans  xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
  xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
  xmlns:util="http://www.springframework.org/schema/util"

  xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd
  http://www.springframework.org/schema/util http://www.springframework.org/schema/util/spring-util-2.0.xsd">


    <util:map id="config">
       <entry key="enable_remote_shell" value="true"/>
    </util:map>

    <bean id="graphDbFactory" class="org.neo4j.graphdb.factory.GraphDatabaseFactory"/>

    <bean id="graphDbBuilder" factory-bean="graphDbFactory" factory-method="newEmbeddedDatabaseBuilder">
         <constructor-arg value="/tmp/neo4j"/>
    </bean>

    <bean id="graphDbBuilderFinal" factory-bean="graphDbBuilder" factory-method="setConfig">
        <constructor-arg ref="config"/>
    </bean>

    <bean id="graphDatabaseService" factory-bean="graphDbBuilderFinal" factory-method="newGraphDatabase" destroy-method="shutdown" />

</beans>

Creating a HighlyAvailableGraphDatabase

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
 
<beans  xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
  xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
  xmlns:util="http://www.springframework.org/schema/util"
 
  xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd
  http://www.springframework.org/schema/util http://www.springframework.org/schema/util/spring-util-2.0.xsd">
 
 
    <util:map id="config">
       <entry key="ha.server_id" value="1"/>
       <entry key="ha.initial_hosts" value=":5000,:5001,:5002"/>
       <!-- put in more config parameters here, http://docs.neo4j.org/chunked/stable/ha-configuration.html -->
    </util:map>
 
    <bean id="graphDbFactory" class="org.neo4j.graphdb.factory.HighlyAvailableGraphDatabaseFactory"/>
 
    <bean id="graphDbBuilder" factory-bean="graphDbFactory" factory-method="newHighlyAvailableDatabaseBuilder">
         <constructor-arg value="/tmp/neo4j"/>
    </bean>
 
    <bean id="graphDbBuilderFinal" factory-bean="graphDbBuilder" factory-method="setConfig">
        <constructor-arg ref="config"/>
    </bean>
 
    <bean id="graphDatabaseService" factory-bean="graphDbBuilderFinal" factory-method="newGraphDatabase" destroy-method="shutdown" />
 
</beans>