January 2016 Summaries

Convert Standalone to Replica Set with Automation | MongoDB Blog` We are proud to announce conversion from standalone to replica set as part of Cloud Manager Automation, which allows users to easily convert their standalone MongoDB instances to replica sets without manual intervention. This process is initiated by navigating to the Deployment page and selecting "Convert to Replica Set" for the standalone MongoDB process. The user is then prompted to give a name to the new replica set, after which they review and deploy their changes. Once the conversion is complete, the standalone instance is taken down and brought back up as a single-member replica set, allowing users to modify it as normal.

MongoDB Compass is a graphical tool that allows developers to easily analyze and understand database schema, as well as visually construct queries without knowing MongoDB's query syntax. It was built to address three main goals: schema discovery, data discovery, and visual construction of queries. Compass displays the data types of fields in a collection's schema, shows histograms to represent data frequency and distribution within a collection, and allows users to build interactive charts that can be used to construct MongoDB queries. The tool is available for free in development environments and comes included with production use subscriptions to MongoDB Professional and Enterprise Advanced.

The MongoDB Connector for BI was introduced in MongoDB 3.2, providing a SQL API to enable real-time data analysis and visualization with Business Intelligence tools such as Microsoft Excel, Tableau, and others. This connector allows users to connect their existing BI tools to MongoDB databases, overcoming limitations like handling special characters in table or column names by editing the DRDL file produced by the mongodrdl tool. The connector is part of MongoDB Enterprise Advanced and can be freely downloaded for evaluation purposes. With this connection, users can fetch data from MongoDB in real-time, enabling powerful analytics and visualization capabilities.