Building Together: MongoDB Is Google Cloud’s Technology Partner of the Year for Data Management

Matt Asay
June 17, 2022

Few companies can credibly claim to understand and work with data as effectively as Google, so when Google Cloud announced this week that MongoDB is the Google Cloud Technology Partner of the Year for Data Management, the award felt particularly meaningful.

But if the honor was just a matter of two leaders in data management slapping each other on the back, it wouldn't be that interesting. No, what makes the award compelling is the customer success that Google Cloud and MongoDB have jointly enabled. We agree with Google Cloud's vision that "True transformation spans the entire business and enables every person to transform," and together have helped customers to achieve this.

Some customers elect to run MongoDB Atlas, our fully managed database service, on Google Cloud because of its broad footprint (Atlas is available in 29 Google Cloud regions), cost/performance benefits, seamless security and scalability, and the recently launched pay-as-you-go option that simplifies subscriptions and can reduce costs. Others have gone further, choosing to take advantage of combining the best services from both companies, like using Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) or Google Cloud Run for their application tier and MongoDB for their data tier. And some choose Google Cloud so they can tie into Google services that are tightly integrated with MongoDB, including BigQuery, Datastream, and Dataproc.

A few examples that show the ambition and innovation MongoDB and Google Cloud customers are bringing to their products:

Precognitive combines device intelligence, advanced behavioral analytics, and a real-time decision engine to accurately detect and prevent fraud for online businesses. Using Google Cloud Bigtable as their data store for behavioral and device data, and MongoDB as the data store for everything else, Precognitive is able to capture and analyze vast amounts of data from around the world, in near real time, to combat fraud. Read our full story on how Precognitive uses MongoDB Atlas.

Forbes, the world's largest business media brand, reaches more than 140 million people worldwide every month across a number of online and offline channels. The company needed to innovate its way through the global COVID-19 pandemic and turned to MongoDB Atlas running on Google Cloud to enable dramatically better agility. Among other initiatives, the publishing giant married MongoDB's flexible data schema with Google Cloud’s machine learning services to deliver a trending story recommendation engine for journalists. Read our full story on Forbes’ migration to Atlas — and the successes of that move.

One of the things we love about working with Google Cloud is the company's pragmatic approach to solving customer problems. Customers tend to choose a predominant cloud vendor upon which to build the majority of their applications, and Google Cloud often serves this role. At Plaid, which helps retailers decipher the complexities of consumer behavior, the company chose to migrate its legacy databases to MongoDB Atlas running on Google Cloud, allowing it to tap into Google Kubernetes Engine, Google Cloud Engine (GCE), Cloud BigTable, and BigQuery. But Plaid also needed to ensure it could run across multiple clouds, which Google Cloud enables with its Anthos service. MongoDB and Google Cloud, working together, deliver that multi-cloud experience for customers. Read our case study on Plaid, MongoDB, and Google Cloud.

If you’re ready to experience the fruits of the MongoDB and Google Cloud partnership, take a look at MongoDB Atlas in the Google console. You can get started for free.

Read more stories about MongoDB and Google Cloud customers doing great things:

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Built With MongoDB: Overcoming Employee Burnout Through Pioneera

Everyone can feel burned out from time to time. Working late hours to meet that project deadline, checking your phone on the weekend for any missed Slack messages from coworkers, an endless stream of Zoom calls — workplace stress can add up quickly and does not leave much room for taking care of yourself. With so much on your plate at any given time, it can be hard to pick up on the warning signs of burnout. One Australian startup has made its mission to prevent employees from reaching burnout with software trained to pick up on those warning signs and alert you. The application, Indie , from Australian startup Pioneera , sends personalized notifications in real time, when employees need them the most. Similar to a spellchecker, Indie helps individuals, teams, and companies prevent burnout. Built With MongoDB spoke with our 2022 MongoDB Savvy Startup Innovation Award winner , Danielle Owen Whitford , who founded Pioneera in 2018. Whitford discussed how she came up with the idea, how the software works, and what the future of Pioneera holds. Built With MongoDB: What is Pioneera all about? Danielle Owen Whitford: Pioneera uses early warning indicators to help reduce workplace stress and prevent burnout in a confidential and safe way. And when we see those early warning signs, helping that person get the help they need in real time to reduce their stress, promote wellness, improve productivity — all that good stuff. Essentially we are trying to use technology to prevent mental health issues in the workplace, which are rising at an alarming rate. Where did the names Pioneera and Indie come from? Our mission is to pioneer a new era of work, and it just came out as Pioneera! As for the name Indie, it’s actually named after my daughter. Our first MVP had a different name, and we had some mixed responses to the name. I was part of SheStarts, an accelerator program in Australia, and I was talking to my fellow founders about some of the experiences I had with my daughter and how she courageously called me out on working too hard. They said, “Why don’t you call the bot Indie?” Customers and users loved it, so Indie bot was a keeper. What are some examples of common stress signals that Indie picks up? We assess language, linguistic markers, and behaviors as the three key areas. From a language point of view, we see that there are certain types of words that are used within a workplace context that are exhibitors of stress. For example, when we’re stressed in real life, we say that we’re stressed, but at work we’re more likely to say, “I feel stretched.” And that’s a word that we have built into our scoring system, which we developed with a psychologist. On the positive side, we look for words like achievement and win. We also look for behavior — how we act in the workplace, particularly around our communication systems, because that’s where Indie sits. What made you decide to start Pioneera? I burned myself out in 2016. I spent 20 years in big companies and had a whole range of senior roles, from running retail networks and call centers to large-scale transformation. It’s not like I was hidden away in the organization — I reported into the executive team and was very visible, so we all saw the signs. I loved what I did, but I didn’t see the warning signs. I left because I felt like I had no other options. In hindsight I know that I did, but at the time, I just couldn't see past where I was at. That is a classic sign of burnout. I took a bit of time off. I started looking at my former colleagues and my peers, and I realized this burnout phenomenon was happening everywhere. I used to see emails from my team that said, “Here we go again” and “I don’t want to do this anymore.” My first degree was in psychology and my second was a Masters in Communication, so I instinctively responded to that language. So if I saw it, I would call them up and ask what was going on. My teams didn’t burn out and they always delivered. But clearly nobody had seen that for me, and I missed all the signs myself, so I burned out. I thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool if we could automate that for everyone?” The naivete in me thought that if Microsoft created a spell-checker, surely it can’t be that hard to create a spell-checker for stress. We know the language is there — we’ve all gotten emails from people where we know they’re having a bad day. That’s what I set out to do, to take my 20 years of experience and turn that into how I could help prevent this burnout from happening. I wanted Indie to do for the world what I had done for my colleagues. Burnout happens at an individual level, but the impacts are pretty significant — not just for that person or their family, but also for the workplace and then for society in general. We’re seeing health care costs that are through the roof, and we’re going to see long-term impacts on the next generation in terms of the ability to educate. These serious social issues are something I knew I needed to turn my attention to. In terms of employees, can you explain who has access to what information? We’re obsessed with privacy and confidentiality, and it's built into every part of the product. Everything is done in a way that protects the confidentiality and privacy of the individual. We did a lot of user testing before we started building the product, and users said that they really love this and the fact that their company would buy this for them. So it contributed to an employer value proposition. But, and it is a big but, they did not want their boss to know that they were stressed, because they thought they’d miss out on a project or HR would contact them or something like that. So that feedback has become the core of everything we do. What does the future of Pioneera look like? We’ve really upped our game on patterns of behaviors that indicate action is needed and the tips we provide to encourage action. We have partnered with expert psychologists to deliver content that is evidence- and research-based and proven to work. We’ve revolutionized our user experience to build connection and trust from the first moment a user hears about Indie. We’re looking to scale internationally with our vision for everyone globally to have Indie’s personalized, real-time support. What have you enjoyed the most about building Pioneera? It feels like there’s real meaning to what we’re doing and we’re actually making a difference in people's lives. I’ll get a call from a customer who says they were headed toward burnout and Indie stopped them. Or a call from a team manager delighted that they acted on Indie’s recommendations and their team is thriving. That sort of thing is always delightful to hear. I feel like we’re doing something positive for the world. How has working with MongoDB enabled Pioneera to succeed? The way the database is set up and structured has enabled us to focus on the things that we need to focus on, because we know MongoDB has our back. We’re a technology company building innovative technology, and we need to deliver our product to the market in a scalable, reliable way. You can run the risk of building a great technology, but it’s not actually a product that solves a problem for customers because the product features aren’t delivering value. MongoDB does technology really well, and that’s what we use it for — to make sure we’re delivering great product features and value to the customer today and tomorrow. Learn more about using Pioneera to overcome employee burnout and find out more about our MongoDB for Startups program .

June 16, 2022

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MongoDB Database Observability: Integrating with Monitoring Tools

This post is the final in a three-part series on leveraging database observability. Welcome back to our series on Leveraging Database Observability! Our previous post showcased a real-world use case highlighting how MongoDB Atlas’s observability tools effectively tackle database performance challenges. Whether you’re a developer, DBA, or DevOps engineer, our mission is to empower you to harness the full potential of your data through our observability suite . Integrating Atlas metrics with your central enterprise observability tools can simplify your operations. By seamlessly working with popular observability tools, our approach helps teams streamline workflows and enhance visibility across systems. Integrating MongoDB Atlas with third-party monitoring tools MongoDB’s developer data platform combines all essential data services for building modern applications within a unified experience. Our purpose-built observability tools for Atlas environments offer automatic monitoring and optimization, guiding diagnostics tailored specifically for MongoDB. Additionally, we extend Atlas metrics into your existing enterprise observability stack, enabling seamless integration without replacing your current tools. This creates a consolidated, single-pane view that unifies Atlas telemetry with other tech and application metrics, ensuring comprehensive visibility into both database and full-stack performance. This integration empowers you to monitor, receive alerts, and make data-driven decisions within your existing workflows, driving greater efficiency. Below is a quick guide to modifying integration settings through the Atlas UI and the popular integrations we support: Navigate to the Project Integrations page in Atlas. Choose the organization and project you want to configure from the navigation bar. On the Project Integrations page, select the third-party services you’d like to integrate. Configure the chosen services with the required API keys and regions. Critical integrations for your observability platform With Atlas’s Datadog and Prometheus integrations, you can send critical MongoDB metrics to these platforms, empowering detailed, real-time monitoring. Through Datadog , you can track database operation counts, query efficiency, and resource usage, ideal for pinpointing bottlenecks and managing resources. Similarly, Prometheus enables you to monitor essential metrics like query times, connection rates, and memory usage, supporting flexible tracking of database health and performance. Both integrations facilitate proactive detection of issues, alert configuration for resource thresholds, and a cohesive view of Atlas data when visualized in Grafana. Atlas’s integration with PagerDuty streamlines incident management by sending metrics like performance alerts, billing anomalies, and security events directly to PagerDuty. This integration records incidents automatically, notifies teams upon alerts, and supports two-way syncing, ensuring resolved alerts in Atlas are reflected in PagerDuty. It enables efficient incident response and resource allocation to maintain system stability. With Atlas integrations for Microsoft Teams and Slack, you can route key metrics—such as query latency, disk usage, and throughput—to these channels for timely updates. Teams can use these insights for real-time performance monitoring, incident response, and collaboration. Notifications through these platforms ensure your team stays informed on database performance, storage health, and user activity changes as they occur. Use case: Centralized observability with MongoDB Atlas, Datadog, and Slack Let’s walk through a hypothetical scenario for ShopSmart, an e-commerce company that leverages MongoDB Atlas to manage its product catalog and customer data. As traffic surges, the DevOps team faces challenges in monitoring application performance and database health effectively. To tackle these challenges, the team leverages MongoDB Atlas’ integration with Datadog and Slack, creating a powerful observability ecosystem. Integrating MongoDB Atlas with Datadog: The team pushes key MongoDB Atlas metrics into Datadog, such as query performance, connection counts, and Atlas Vector Search metrics. With Datadog, they can visualize these metrics and correlate overall MongoDB performance with their other applications. Out-of-the-box monitors and dedicated dashboards allow the team to track metrics like throughput, average read/write latency, and current connections. This visibility helps pinpoint bottlenecks in real time, ensuring optimal database performance and improving overall application responsiveness. Setting up alerts in Datadog: The team configures alerts for critical metrics like high query latency and increased error rates. When thresholds are breached, Datadog instantly notifies the team. This proactive approach allows the team to address potential performance issues before they impact customers. Integrating Datadog with Slack: To ensure fast communication, alerts are sent directly to the dedicated Slack channel, “ShopSmart-Alerts.” This integration fosters seamless collaboration, enabling the team to discuss and resolve issues in real-time. With these integrations, ShopSmart’s engineering team can monitor performance quickly and address issues efficiently. The unified observability approach enhances operational efficiency, improves the customer experience, and supports ShopSmart’s competitive edge in the e-commerce industry. By leveraging MongoDB Atlas, Datadog, and Slack, the team ensures scalable performance and drives continuous innovation. Conclusion MongoDB Atlas empowers developers and organizations to achieve unparalleled observability and control over their database environments. By seamlessly integrating with central enterprise observability tools, Atlas enhances your ability to monitor performance metrics and ensures you can do so within your existing workflows. This means you can focus on building modern applications confidently, knowing you have the insights and alerts necessary to maintain optimal performance. Embrace the power of MongoDB Atlas and transform your approach to database management—because your applications can thrive when your data is observable. And that wraps up our Leveraging Database Observability series! We hope you learned something new and found value in these discussions. Sign up for MongoDB Atlas , our cloud database service, to see database observability in action. To dive deeper and expand your knowledge, check out this learning byte for more insights on the MongoDB observability suite and how it can enhance your database performance.

November 14, 2024