At its MongoDB Europe conference this week, MongoDB updated its open-source document database with the addition of MongoDB Ops Manager to simplify management of distributed instances of version 3.6 of its database.
In addition, the company has added a capability that enables all updates to the database to be automatically reflected in the application in real time without having to take the database offline.
Additional new capabilities include a MongoDB Compass tool to analyze schemas and a governance capability that makes it easier to apply and tune data governance polices before and after an application is deployed.
The company has added an aggregation pipeline that allows users to perform real-time analytics directly in the database to improve performance. Developers and analysts now can write queries combining data from multiple collections for complex analytics. Its Connector for BI, which can now be deployed and managed by its Ops Manager, has been updated to support this new query capability.
Finally, in the event of a system failure or network outage, MongoDB says it now automatically will replay any writes to the database when those services come back online.
Brooks Circhlow, vice president of product for MongoDB, says developers have embraced document databases as an alternative to other database platforms because of their flexibility. Unlike, for example, relational databases, a document database doesn’t impose a schema that must be crafted by a database administrator. But as more instances of document databases proliferate across the enterprise, DevOps challenges start to manifest.
In fact, Circhlow notes that IT organizations are also making extensive use of cross-replication capabilities across multiple database clusters that they manage or are managed on their behalf via the MongoDB Atlas managed service. In many of those instances, DevOps teams are responsible for both the applications and the document databases they run on.
MongoDB is also moving to address a DevSecOps issue stemming from a wave of attacks aimed at misconfigured instances of its database. Circhlow says the most widely used installer for MongoDB limits network access by binding to localhost by default. With version 3.6, binding to the localhost is now extended to all MongoDB packages across all platforms. In addition, with new IP whitelisting support, administrators can configure MongoDB to only accept external connections on approved IP addresses.
Document databases such as MongoDB arguably have been a primary catalyst for DevOps. Once developers began to bypass database administrators by downloading instances of document databases, it became clear that traditional approaches to IT operations were starting to erode. Most organizations would prefer their developers to write code than manage databases, so some new means for managing databases that doesn’t compromise the dexterity that document databases provide developers was required. Once those processes get established, the next question then becomes how to make traditional database administration involving other classes of databases part of that process. Most IT organizations are still working through those processes. But it’s clear database administration will never be the same.
— Mike Vizard
