MongoDB Extends Cloud Lineup With New Database Release, Search And Mobile Tools

MongoDB 4.4 offers new development capabilities that solution providers and ISVs can use to build transactional, operational and analytical applications.

MongoDB unveiled a new release of its next-generation database this week that, combined with newly available data lake, search and mobile database software, gives solution providers and ISV partners expanded opportunities to develop applications and solutions that leverage data wherever it resides.

In addition to debuting MongoDB 4.4, currently in beta and set for general availability in July, MongoDB said that its cloud-based Atlas Data Lake and Atlas Search systems, which were unveiled in beta form one year ago, are now generally available.

MongoDB also announced the general availability of MongoDB Realm, a mobile database that incorporates the popular open-source technology MongoDB acquired in April 2019 when the company bought Realm.io.

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For MongoDB’s reseller, systems integrator and ISV partners, the expanded technology portfolio creates opportunities to develop more extensive solutions and applications with search and mobile capabilities, said Alan Chhabra, MongoDB senior vice president and head of the company’s worldwide partners and Asia-Pacific sales, in an interview with CRN.

“Partners can benefit from this because they can put their technology and intellectual property into that stack and build a more complete solution,” Chhabra said, noting the expanded MongoDB product lineup. “Systems integrators now have a more complete platform they can build on.”

Systems integration giant Accenture, for example, is a longtime MongoDB strategic partner that has incorporated the vendor’s software into its Data on Cloud initiative. Accenture developed data acceleration technology called Smart Data Mover to transition data from on-premises data warehouse systems to cloud data repositories, including MongoDB Atlas.

“Accenture sees growing demand from companies for solutions that can easily migrate applications and data to the cloud,” said Shail Jain, Accenture global managing director, data & AI, in a statement. “Our Smart Data Mover solution accelerates this process for moving data into MongoDB and other target platforms,” he said, adding that Accenture looks forward to “expanding our capabilities using MongoDB as a target platform.”

MongoDB, which has become one of the more visible vendors in the crowded field of next-generation database developers, works with reseller, systems integrator, ISV, OEM and technology partners. Chhabra estimated that about 50 percent of the company’s sales involves a partner in some way.

The company was recently named Google Cloud Technology Partner of the Year for Marketplace. The company has a close relationship with IBM, which OEMs the MongoDB database, and IBM-owned Red Hat: MongoDB can be purchased through the Red Hat online marketplace for deployment with Red Hat’s OpenShift Container Platform. Last year the company partnered with tech giant Alibaba to bring the MongoDb database to China, and in March the company launched a high-visibility bid to recruit Oracle customers to switch to the MongoDB database.

MongoDB, which went public in 2017, recently reported that sales in its fiscal 2020 (ended Jan. 31) grew 58 percent year over year to $421.7 million.

MongoDB 4.4 offers a new “union” feature that speeds analytical processes while reducing dependencies on ETL (extract, transform and load) processes and data warehouses, according to the company. New “refinable shard keys” allow for easier scale-out of the MongoDB database through the ability to modify data locations to meet changing application and business requirements. And the new “hedged reads” feature ensures consistent and predictable performance by submitting data read requests to multiple replicas and returning results as soon as the fastest node responds.

Partners “are very excited about the MongoDB 4.4 announcement,” Chhabra said.

MongoDB Atlas, the company’s fully managed Database-as-a-Service offering, launched in 2016 and the availabilty of Atlas Data Lake and Atlas Search significantly expands that cloud platform’s capabilities.

Atlas Data Lake uses the same MongoDB Query Language to run queries and return data, including real-time transactional data or long-running analytical queries. Businesses can connect to AWS S3 data storage to run queries and explore data, according to MongoDB. Atlas Data Lake users also have access to tiered data in Atlas Online Archive and can run federated queries across Atlas and AWS S3.

The Atlas Search engine is integrated with the MongoDB Atlas cloud database, using a consistent API, to provide search capabilities to applications developed for Atlas. It supports the same language and data model as the core database.

The availability of the MongoDB Realm mobile database provides ISV and solution providers with a platform for developing mobile client applications that can synchronize data with MongoDB and MongoDB Atlas. The company said that 7-Eleven, a MongoDB customer, is using the MongoDB Realm Sync capability to build an inventory management system with bi-directional data synchronization.