The announcements we made today at MongoDB World 2018 represent a significant milestone in the evolution of MongoDB, making it the database of choice for all modern applications. Broadly speaking, there are three reasons for this:
- The document data model – presenting you the best way to work with data.
- It’s distributed by design – allowing you to intelligently put data where you want it.
- A unified experience that gives you the freedom to run anywhere – allowing you to future-proof your work and eliminate vendor lock-in.
There is a ton of new stuff, and so I wanted to give you a summary of what I covered during my keynote, with links to key resources so you can learn more.
Best Way to Work with Data
Today we released MongoDB Server 4.0 for General Availability. The highlight of the release is multi-document ACID transactions, which we previewed back in February with a beta program that attracted thousands of members of the community, putting transactions through their paces and providing invaluable feedback the engineering team. We’ve implemented transactions so they feel just like the transactions you are familiar with from relational databases. They enforce snapshot isolation to provide a consistent view of data, and all-or-nothing execution to maintain data integrity. And while the document model means multi-document transactions aren’t necessary for most operations, with them it’s even easier for you to address a complete range of use cases with MongoDB.
It’s no secret how much I love MongoDB’s aggregation framework. Building queries stage-by-stage, checking your output as you go is by far a better way to write your most complicated queries than dealing with a monolithic snarl of SQL. To make that workflow even better, we’ve enhanced MongoDB Compass with the aggregation pipeline builder, which provides stage-by-stage, real-time feedback on the documents flowing through your pipelines. It’s easier than ever to deploy sophisticated processing pipelines that transform, aggregate, and analyze your data, all from the simple and intuitive MongoDB Compass GUI. You can then export the pipelines, and any other queries you create in Compass, to the native code of your preferred programming language. Server 4.0 also adds type conversions to the aggregation pipeline. With the new $convert operator you can transform mixed data types into standardized, cleansed formats natively within the database, preparing it for BI and machine learning, while eliminating costly, slow, and fragile ETL processes.
Extending the tools you can use to work with data managed by the server, we announced the public beta of MongoDB Charts, which provides the fastest and easiest way to get insights into your operational data, in real time. With Charts, you can create and share visualisations of your MongoDB data, using a document-native interface, without needing to move it into other systems or leverage third-party tools.
Documents and MongoDB’s query language are the best way to work with data, and to bring that power out of the datacenter and into the hands of app developers, MongoDB Stitch, which is GA as of today, provides two of its four services: QueryAnywhere and Functions. Using the authentication and declarative access control rules of Stitch QueryAnywhere, we can end the horrid practice of implementing shadow query languages in REST on top of application servers that just turn those REST calls into real query languages. With a native SDK, developers can make use of the full power of MongoDB from mobile and JavaScript applications, while Stitch makes sure that the right permissions are observed. Stitch Functions, JavaScript functions that execute with full access to application context, let developers compose their business logic with access to Atlas and calls to external services. With these two services, it’s easy to build complete applications without standing up a single application server.
Intelligently Put Data Where you Want It
As a distributed system, MongoDB enables you to spread data out across a cluster of nodes for resilience, scalability, and workload isolation. Unlike other distributed databases that randomly spray data around a cluster, MongoDB allows you to define controls that place data on specific nodes, for example in a specific region for low latency reads and writes, and for compliance with new privacy regulations.
The new Global Clusters introduced to MongoDB Atlas allow you to deploy a geographically distributed, fully managed database that provides low latency writes and reads to users anywhere, with data placement controls for regulatory compliance. We also announced Atlas Enterprise, offering new security controls including LDAP integration, the encrypted storage engine with bring-your-own key management, and database-level auditing. Organizations can now also use databases managed by MongoDB Atlas to build HIPAA-compliant applications under an executed Business Associate Agreement (BAA) with MongoDB, Inc. With these now announcements, MongoDB Atlas is the most secure cloud database service available anywhere.
Coding in a distributed world also means that the traditional means of responding to events in a database are no longer viable. So Stitch Triggers, also GA today, makes it possible by building on the Change Streams introduced in MongoDB 3.6. When you create a trigger, Stitch manages a change stream on your behalf, providing real-time notifications to Stitch Functions, which can react in all the ways functions can, from updating analytics rollup collections, to sending email or text messages, or kicking off other external services like Kafka or Kinesis.
Freedom to Run Anywhere
Whether you want to consume your database as a service in MongoDB Atlas, or manage it yourself on your own infrastructure, the announcements today make that even easier. We deliver a data platform that runs the same everywhere, that leverages the benefits of multi-cloud strategy with no lock-in, and is available in 50+ regions across the major cloud providers.
If you want to run MongoDB yourself, then we have released our new free MongoDB monitoring cloud service. The service is available to all MongoDB users, without needing to install an agent, navigate a paywall, or complete a registration form. You will be able to see the metrics and topology about your environment from the moment free monitoring is enabled. You can enable free monitoring easily using the MongoDB shell, MongoDB Compass, or by starting the mongod process with the new db.enableFreeMonitoring() command line option, and you can opt out at any time.
We’re seeing more DevOps teams leveraging the power of containerization and technologies like Kubernetes and Red Hat OpenShift to manage containerized clusters. Today we announced beta of the new MongoDB Enterprise Operator for Kubernetes, enabling you to deploy and manage MongoDB clusters from within the Kubernetes API, without having to connect separately to Ops Manager. You can learn more by reading our Red Hat OpenShift and MongoDB blog, and checking out the repository on GitHub.
Announced today, MongoDB Mobile takes MongoDB to a new frontier. Available in beta, MongoDB Mobile extends your ability to put data where you need it, all the way out to the edge of the network on IoT assets and iOS and Android mobile devices. MongoDB Mobile provides a single database, query language, and the intuitive Stitch SDK that runs consistently for data held on mobile clients, through to the backend server.
MongoDB Mobile provides the power and flexibility of MongoDB in a compact form that is power- and performance-aware with a low disk and memory footprint. It supports 64 bit iOS and Android operating systems and is easily embedded into mobile and IoT devices for fast and reliable local storage of JSON documents. With secondary indexing, access to the full MongoDB query language and aggregations, users can query data any way they want. With local reads and writes, MongoDB Mobile lets you build the fastest, most reactive apps. And Stitch Mobile Sync, which is in private beta now, will automatically synchronize data changes between data held locally and your backend database, helping resolve any conflicts – even after the device has been offline. The beta program is open now, and you can sign up for access on the MongoDB Mobile product page.
What’s Next?
So as you can see, that’s a ton of stuff. The announcements today represent our biggest set of releases yet, and we’re incredibly excited to get it into your hands and see what amazing things you do with them. Head over to our MongoDB World 2018 announcements page for more resources on each of these new products and services.