Top 10 MongoDB Blogs of 2022

William To
December 19, 2022

2022 was a year of many milestones at MongoDB — from global events to enhancements to the MongoDB Atlas developer data platform, and everything in between. Our most popular blog posts reflected these achievements, covering announcements, events, and more, from MongoDB 6.0 to Queryable Encryption to our annual Partner of the Year awards.

Read on for a roundup of all our top blog posts from 2022.

10. Recognizing MongoDB's Partners of the Year

Partners are a big part of MongoDB’s success, helping our customers modernize their infrastructure with MongoDB, integrating MongoDB into their existing systems, and even selling Atlas on their marketplaces. Other partners also help adapt the MongoDB developer data platform to various sectors and niches, such as streaming data, ecommerce, and financial services.

Read Working Together: MongoDB’s Partner of the Year Awards to learn about a few of these organizations.

9. Syncing data with cluster-to-cluster sync

Data sync and backups are a key part of the Atlas developer data platform. Until recently, however, there was no easy way to sync data across clusters, especially if they were in different environments — think syncing a hybrid cluster with a cloud-native one.

This blog introduces cluster-to-cluster sync, which enables one-way synchronization between any two MongoDB clusters, regardless of type. The sync process is very flexible, includes real-time monitoring, and controls to pause, resume, or reverse synchronization at any time.

Read Keeping Data in Sync Anywhere with Cluster-to-Cluster Sync.

8. How MongoDB 6.0 improves time series data

Utilized in everything from IoT devices to ecommerce, time series data is an important use case for many industries. Since their release in MongoDB 5.0, time series collections have been continuously improved to help developers tackle a wider range of problems, including columnar compression for smaller storage footprints, densification for filling data gaps, and enhanced indexing on time series collections for better read performance.

Read MongoDB Announces New Time Series Capabilities Coming For MongoDB 6.0.

7. Reducing complexity with Apollo GraphQL and MongoDB Atlas

As a layer that unifies your cloud data, APIs, and services into a single, accessible schema (known as a graph), GraphQL brings a streamlined, monolithic approach to operations while retaining the benefits of a microservices architecture. This post discusses how the scalability, reliability, and usability of the MongoDB Atlas developer data platform make it an ideal data layer for any tech environment that utilizes a graph.

Read Building a Modern App Stack with Apollo GraphQL and MongoDB Atlas.

6. Improvements to change streams

Change streams enable applications to recognize data changes throughout their environment, simplifying the creation of event-driven applications and abilities like real-time personalization, notifications, and more.

This post explains the upgrades to change streams in depth, including the ability to retrieve the before and after states of documents to address more use cases; support for data definition language (DDL) operations (such as creating or dropping indexes with a single command) to simplify database management; and filtering notifications from aggregation frameworks for improved performance.

Read Change Streams in MongoDB 6.0 — Support Pre- and Post-Image Retrieval, DDL Operations, and more.

5. Breaking biases and getting more women into tech leadership

Even as representation in tech improves, only 26.7% of technologists are women — who leave the sector at a rate 45% higher than their male counterparts. For International Women’s Day, MongoDB senior product designer Ksenia Samokhvalova sat down with executives for a panel discussion on the root causes of (and potential solutions for) this issue. They discussed the differences between inclusivity and diversity, the hurdles for retention, how bias begins at a young age, and the importance of mentorship.

Read Breaking the Bias: How Can We Get More Women into Top-Level Tech.

4. Highlights from MongoDB World 2022

After three years, MongoDB World returned to New York City’s Javits Center from June 7-9 for three days of exploration, inspiration, and innovation. Readers were eager to get the scoop on everything they missed, from new product launches to workshops.

Day 1 kicked off the conference with keynotes announcing the latest features and outlining the concept of a developer data platform, an integrated set of data and application services with a unified developer experience. Day 2 included over 80 breakout sessions on topics ranging from diversity to data modeling to building with Rust. The last day featured a keynote from renowned inventor Ray Kurzweil, interactive competitions and challenges at the Builder’s Fest, and the “Chaos Presentation” from MongoDB CTO Mark Porter.

Read our recaps for day 1, day 2, and day 3 of MongoDB World. If you are interested in watching full sessions from MongoDB World, check out our playlist on YouTube.

3. Introducing MongoDB's Prometheus monitoring integration

A popular open source monitoring platform, Prometheus features a flexible query language (PromQL), a versatile data model that supports time series data, customizable alerting, a large, active user community, and consistent updates.

In this post, learn how the integration enables Prometheus to collect hardware and monitoring metrics from MongoDB and display them directly in the Prometheus UI or via Grafana dashboards. You can simplify monitoring with the Prometheus integration for MongoDB, removing the need to toggle between interfaces and keeping all your metrics in one place.

Read Introducing MongoDB’s Prometheus Monitoring Integration.

2. Queryable Encryption

For years, Queryable Encryption (QE) existed only as a theory: What if users could query fully-encrypted data, and only have to decrypt it once the results were returned? Given that data has traditionally been encrypted at rest or in transit — but not during the querying process — a feature like QE would add an additional layer of protection and remove a known vulnerability.

We were happy to see that readers were as excited as we were at the release of Queryable Encryption in preview. This announcement was only possible after years of research and partnerships with outside experts from Brown University, the University of Chicago, and a leading organization in the field. For more background on the evolution of Queryable Encryption, check out Wired’s article, A Long Awaited Defense Against Data Leaks May Have Just Arrived.

Now, you can run fast, rich queries on encrypted data at scale, keeping it secure throughout its lifecycle. Queryable Encryption also helps speed up app development because it is easy to use and set up, is compatible with MongoDB drivers, and supports strong key management and cryptography.

Read MongoDB Releases Queryable Encryption Preview.

1. 7 reasons to upgrade to MongoDB 6.0

The release of MongoDB 6.0 was big news this year. It brought improvements and new features in areas, like security, change streams, time series collections, operations, and more — making the developer data platform even easier to run, scale, and build with. As with other releases, MongoDB 6.0 removes data silos, eliminates complexity, and frees up teams to spend less time troubleshooting custom architectures — and more time creating apps and products.

Some highlights were the inclusion of Atlas Search facets to easily filter results, the creation of initial sync (via file copy) to quickly catch up new or slow nodes in your replica sets, and the addition of new operators to aggregation frameworks for faster analysis and deeper insights.

Read 7 Big Reasons to Upgrade to MongoDB 6.0.

We hope you had a great 2022, and that you enjoyed attending our events, reading our blogs, and using the MongoDB Atlas developer data platform. As always, you can sign up for a free (forever) cluster on Atlas.

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MongoDB Underpins Massive Digital-First Data Strategy Adoption Across Asia Pacific from Singapore

Members of MongoDB’s Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) team get set for their first MongoDB Day in Singapore. Singapore is fast becoming a strategic hub for companies across Asia Pacific as they reorient around a digital-first strategy, according to Simon Eid, senior vice president, APAC, MongoDB. During the past year, MongoDB’s team in Singapore has expanded from five people to more than 50 people to support exponential growth and demand in the region. Speaking at the first MongoDB Day ever held in Singapore, which was sponsored by AWS, Eid explained that, since COVID-19 hit in March 2020, companies, senior management teams, and executive boards have started asking how quickly they could pivot to a digital-first strategy. “Retailers had to become experts at ecommerce, gaming and streaming companies had to deal with a surge of demand, pharmacies had to figure out how to get medications to their customers, and time was of the essence — speed was critical,” said Eid. MongoDB fastest for digital transformation Simon Eid, senior vice president, APAC, MongoDB. Eid said businesses across Asia Pacific quickly learned that the fastest way to build new digital capabilities was to use MongoDB. Developers could move incredibly fast and ship quickly. Product leaders realized they could get to market faster than the competition, and company executives realized they could seize new opportunities or respond to new threats. “Our whole ethos as a company is to make developers insanely productive, and our real opportunity for Asia Pacific is now how to help customers go to the next level supporting operational productivity with data management at the heart of everything they do,” he said. Simply the most secure Amit Samdarshi, product manager, Open Government Producst, explians how his team innovates. MongoDB has been downloaded 265 million times, ten times more than the number of developers in the world, which is testament to its growing global reputation. Locally in Singapore and across Asia Pacific, more and more customers are choosing MongoDB, and specifically Atlas, for its simplicity, flexibility, and robust security. “Regulators, financial institutions, and the Singapore government now recognize that MongoDB and Atlas provide the most secure data management system and service available in the market — you only have to look at Singapore’s FormSG within Open Government Products as a perfect example,” said Eid. Forms for public good Presentation at MongoDB Days Singapore Open Government Singapore has a dedicated team of 100 people working for FormSG, a department credited with revolutionizing government forms digitally with MongoDB Atlas on AWS. FormSG chose MongoDB because they required the highest level of security for data encryption as well as the confidence that they would not be impacted by downtime or performance issues with many users accessing forms simultaneously. “They describe themselves as “Forms for public good,” having touched the lives of millions of people during COVID-19, streamlining how members of the public engage with the multitude of government forms, and MongoDB is the backbone of this initiative,” said Eid. “We’re very proud of what they have achieved, held up as a shining example of data management excellence by the Singapore government now being showcased to other countries around the world,” he said. Poised for further growth From healthcare to social media analytics, digital banking and food delivery services, MongoDB is powering some of the most innovative growth companies to emerge across the region: A recent example is Greenline Synergy Co. Ltd (GLS) in Thailand using MongoDB Atlas to transform healthcare for the country’s leading hospital group, Bangkok Dusit Medical Services (BDMS). Also in Thailand, Computerology is unlocking the value of social media management and social listening via analytics. Indonesian FinTech Amar Bank is the pioneer of digital banking providing microloans to people who wouldn’t be able to get financial services from traditional banks. Woowa Brothers Vietnam introduced its food delivery app, BAEMIN, to local users in May 2019, and it scaled rapidly throughout the pandemic to become one of the leading food technology companies across the country. Woowa Brothers Vietnam introduced its food delivery app BAEMIN to local users in May 2019 and it scaled rapidly throughout the pandemic to become one of the leading food technology companies across the country. Another interesting story from the wider APAC region is TableCheck, the world’s premiere booking and guest platform. TableCheck's CTO Johnny Shields was also on site at the event and presented on how MongoDB has been a fit for TableCheck's developer workflow since they were founded in 2013. He explained that MongoDB allowed them to work with their data easily and quickly while building out their APIs and application. We'll be having a full blog on their use case coming soon. MongoDB continues to invest in its Asia Pacific operations with Singapore now firmly established as the regional ASEAN hub for customers and partners. “Singapore is a highly regulated, highly secure market, which gives customers and partners confidence when working through their digital transformation strategies and the vendor partners they require. We are excited to have partnered with AWS for our first MongoDB day, which reinforces our close alignment to cloud providers who are an integral part of our customer digital transformation plans,” Eid said. Learn more about MongoDB Atlas and try for free today .

December 15, 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