MongoDB and AWS Expand Global Collaboration

MongoDB launched as a developer-friendly, open source database in 2009, but it wasn't until 2016, when we released MongoDB Atlas, our fully managed database service, that the full vision for MongoDB truly emerged.

Realizing that vision, however, has never been a solo effort. From the earliest days, MongoDB has partnered with a range of companies, but none more closely than with Amazon Web Services (AWS) as we've joined forces to make the developer experience as seamless as possible.

Now we're kicking that partnership into overdrive. As announced today, MongoDB is expanding our global partnership with AWS. Though details of the agreement are confidential, the results will not be: Customers stand to benefit from deeper, broader technical integrations, improvements in migrating workloads from legacy data infrastructure to modern MongoDB Atlas, and more. For those of us who have worked to grow this partnership, it's exciting (and rewarding!) to see the scope of the work envisioned by MongoDB and AWS, together.

On that note, it's worth revisiting how we got here.

Building together

From the earliest days, we've positioned MongoDB as the best way to manage a wide variety of data types and sources, in real time, at significant scale. Back then we called it "Big Data," but now we recognize it for what it is: what all modern data looks like. Then and now, MongoDB came with an open license that encouraged developers to easily access and tune the database to their needs. And so they did, with many developers opting to run their instances of MongoDB on AWS, removing the need to buy and provision servers. In fact, almost from the start of the company, we have worked closely with AWS to ensure that MongoDB users and customers would have an excellent experience running MongoDB on AWS.

It was a great start, but it wasn't enough.

Developers, after all, still had to fiddle with the dials and knobs of managing the database. This began to change in 2011, when the company released the MongoDB Monitoring Service (MMS). MMS made it much easier to monitor MongoDB clusters of any size. By 2013, we rolled MMS, Backup, and other MongoDB services into the MongoDB Management Service, and continued to work closely with AWS to optimize these services for MongoDB customers. Then in 2016, again with extensive AWS assistance, we launched MongoDB Atlas, a fully managed, integrated suite of cloud database and data services to accelerate and simplify how developers build with data.

Making life easier for developers was the vision that co-founders Dwight Merriman and Eliot Horowitz had when they started MongoDB (then 10gen) in 2007. That vision has always depended on a strong partnership with AWS. This partnership got even stronger, as we just announced, with the promise of even better serverless options, expanded use of AWS Graviton instances to improve performance, and improved hybrid options through AWS Outposts. Beyond product, we'll also be more closely collaborating to reach and educate customers through joint Developer Relations initiatives, programs to reach new customers, and more.

As good as our partnership has been, it just got significantly better. Although focusing on how the two companies compete may be convenient (for example, both organizations provide database services), how we cooperate is a more compelling story.

So let's talk about that.

A mutual obsession

Over the past 15 years, MongoDB has built an extensive partner ecosystem. From open source mainstays like Confluent, to application development innovators like Vercel, data intelligence pioneers like BigID, and trusted system integration powerhouses like Accenture, we work closely with the best partners to ensure developers enjoy an exceptional experience working with MongoDB.

As already noted, AWS is the partner with which we've worked most closely for the longest time. That partnership has resulted in tight integration between MongoDB and AWS services such as AWS Wavelength, Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose, Amazon EventBridge, AWS PrivateLink, AWS App Runner, Amazon Managed Grafana, and more.

We also recently announced Pay as You Go Atlas on AWS Marketplace, giving customers even more options for how they run MongoDB on AWS. Additionally, as part of our new strategic agreement, we'll be offering joint customer incentive programs to make it even easier for customers to run proofs of concept and migrate from expensive legacy data infrastructure to MongoDB Atlas running on AWS.

If this seems to paint an overly rosy picture of our partnership with AWS, it's worth remembering that the guiding principle for both AWS and MongoDB is customer obsession. Of course we've had moments when we've disagreed over how best to take care of customers, because every partnership has its fair share of friction. But behind the scenes, our product, marketing, and sales teams have worked together for years to meet customer needs.

Customers seem to recognize this. In MongoDB's most recent earnings call, we announced that we now have more than 33,000 customers — including Shutterfly, Cox Automotive, Pitney Bowes, and Nesto Software — many of which choose to run Atlas on AWS.