MongoDB: The NoSQL Database
The hype of the word “ MongoDB” isn’t hidden in the contemporary junctures. With the years flowing, the prominence of databases has graced the highlight of the companies around. The IT industries and technologies offer a handful amount of database software that can be practiced depending on the use case.
What is the need for databases?
Let us say, you went to a market for buying goodies. The foremost necessity here is to take baggage which could store the things you bought. Also, you arrange the bought items in such a way that nothing gets ruined. The same goes for the data.
“Data is the new oil” is one of the most popular catchphrases highlighting the importance of data. The data is generated at lightning speed every day. The Googles, Amazons, and Facebooks of the world could not keep count even if they wanted to. Therefore, the retrieval of a piece of information from this heap becomes tedious.
Databases software stores the data in a fashionable format that tries to reduce the input-output operations and reduce latency. A database is an organized collection of data, generally stored and accessed electronically from a computer system.
The different databases :
The first computer database was built in the 1960s, but the history of databases as we know them really begins in 1970. As mentioned, the range of databases hasn’t been confined. All these databases have been divided into many categories. Out of which two are kind of rising. And we will discuss mostly around them. While both the databases are viable options still there are certain key differences between the two that users must keep in mind when making a decision.
SQL: Sequence Query Language :
It is a rational database that was based on tables. The tables had a specific pre-created schema and all entries were supposed to be based on that schema only.
NoSQL: Not Only Sequence Query Language
It is a non-relational database that was based on documents. Instead of giving pre-created schema, the entries in this database are stored individually in documents.
MongoDB: The NoSQL Database
The trend of non-relational databases surpasses SQL because of its dynamic documentation ability and, many more resources for the same. As per the stats MongoDB has been used most under the NoSQL.
What is MongoDB?
MongoDB was formerly known as 10gen prior to its name change in August 2013, is a software company founded in 2007 in the United States that is most well-known for its product, MongoDB, a cross-platform NoSQL database
MongoDB stores data in JSON-like documents that can vary in structure, offering a dynamic, flexible schema. MongoDB was also designed for high availability and scalability, with built-in replication and auto-sharding.MongoDB is a tool in the Databases category of a tech stack. MongoDB is an open-source tool with 19.7K GitHub stars and 4.8K GitHub forks.
Features of MongoDB :
1. Support ad hoc queries
2. Indexing
3. Replication
4. Duplication of data
5. Load balancing
6. Supports map-reduce and aggregation tools.
7. Uses JavaScript instead of Procedures.
8. It is a schema-less database written in C++.
9. Provides high performance.
10. Stores files of any size easily without complicating your stack.
11. Easy to administer in the case of failures.
Who uses MongoDB?
According to the resources jotted down by StackShare 3802 companies reportedly use MongoDB in their tech stacks, including Uber, Lyft, and Delivery Hero.
Use-Case of MongoDB: The Aadhar Card System
MongoDB has been used by many high-rising companies to lessen their burden of large data. Some companies using MongoDB are Uber, eBay. One such use case is India’s Adhar Card Systems.
What is an Aadhar card?
Aadhaar is a 12 digit individual identification number issued by the Unique Identification Authority of India on behalf of the Government of India. The number serves as proof of identity and address, anywhere in India.
Aadhaar continues to enroll thousands of Indians each day and add terabytes of data to its Central Identity Data Repository, MongoDB, and other data management and analytics software providers continue to produce insights that will aid Aadhaar and the lives of millions of India’s BoP citizens.
In November 2013, it was announced that MongoDB’s CEO, Max Schireson, was in New Delhi to complete talks with the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) in order for MongoDB to be one of the approved partners for the Aadhaar program.
MongoDB is an example of a startup company that leverages its expertise in data management, processing, and analytics to provide services to UIDAI’s Aadhaar program across the fifth and sixth stages of Aadhaar’s value chain.
Aadhaar chose to partner with MongoDB (in addition to other vendors such as Hadoop, MySQL, HBase, and Solr) for several reasons.
First, MongoDB increases database efficiency with its NoSQL approach, which enables Aadhaar to capture, process, search, and analyze large unstructured datasets faster than most other management software would allow.
Second, MongoDB can efficiently store large volumes of biometric data and images, whereas many other management systems, such as MySQL, are less suited for image storage.
Third, Aadhaar’s data processing analytics cannot depend solely on a single software supplier. As a result, UIDAI diversified its systems reliance across multiple vendors and leverages each vendor’s strengths. Aadhaar has therefore been less dependent on MongoDB and has decided to share more of the data processing volume with its other management vendors.
Rise of MongoDB over the years:
MongoDB has been performing well financially and has gained the attention of many venture investors over the years, including NEA, Sequoia Capital, Flybridge Capital Partners, Union Square Ventures, In-Q-Tel, Intel Capital, Salesforce.com, Red Hat, T. Rowe Price, Fidelity, and Altimeter Capital. In its most recent venture round in October 2013, MongoDB had a valuation of approximately $1.2 billion.
MongoDB has thus attracted a lot of clients. But this does not suggest other databases are anything lesser. Depending upon the use-cases the desired database is chosen. The world of databases is deep enough to explore.
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