February 2023 Summaries

MongoDB Atlas Integrations for CDKTF are now Generally Available`, announced by MongoDB, bring automation, version control, security, disaster recovery, cost savings, and improved compliance to developers using Cloud Development Kit for Terraform. These integrations abstract away the low-level details of cloud infrastructure, simplifying the deployment process and eliminating context switching. They support multiple programming languages, including JavaScript, Python, Java, Go, and .NET, and enable true multi-cloud deployments on AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud. The integrations are free and open source, with users only paying for underlying Atlas resources created.

MongoDB Atlas Integrations for AWS CloudFormation and CDK are now Generally Available`, announces the availability of new integrations between MongoDB Atlas and two popular cloud development tools, AWS CloudFormation and AWS Cloud Development Kit (CDK). These integrations allow developers to manage and provision infrastructure resources through code, using automation, version control, security, disaster recovery, cost savings, and improved compliance. The integrations are built on top of the Atlas Admin API and provide multiple ways for users to get started with MongoDB Atlas using AWS Infrastructure as Code. Options include using AWS CloudFormation, AWS CDK, or AWS Partner Solutions, which offer pre-built templates for deployment and management of Atlas resources. These new integrations are free and open source licensed under Apache License 2.0, allowing users to start building with MongoDB Atlas and AWS CloudFormation without additional costs.

MongoDB Atlas is being explored as a data hub for smart manufacturing by Microsoft Azure. The traditional approach of using separate databases and data warehouses to accommodate various transactional and analytical workloads in manufacturing systems will no longer be effective due to the rapid growth of IIoT data and the need for real-time analytics. MongoDB Atlas combines transactional processing, application-driven analytics, relevance-based search, and mobile edge computing with cloud sync, offering a versatile platform that can address almost every type of modern applications being built for the digital economy by developers. The benefits of using MongoDB Atlas in smart manufacturing include scalability, flexibility, real-time analytics, BI analytics, and faster mobile application development.

Atlas Charts has released two significant updates: new sample dashboards to provide inspiration for users when building their first dashboards, and enhancements to the Embedding SDK that allow users to filter data directly within embedded dashboards and save images as PNG. The new sample dashboards analyze various use cases such as product usage, sales, IoT sensor data, and observability, providing a starting point for exploring data in Charts. The updated Embedding SDK enables users to add interactive filtering to their embedded dashboards, allowing them to dig deeper into their datasets and enhance data exploration. With these updates, Atlas Charts aims to provide more value to its users, making it easier for them to create powerful data visualizations and achieve their visualization goals.

The integration between MongoDB Atlas and the Databricks Lakehouse Platform offers a flexible and scalable architecture for data management and analysis, addressing the challenges of siloed data, slow decision-making, and outdated development processes. The two platforms complement each other well, with MongoDB Atlas serving as an Operational Data Store (ODS) and Databricks Lakehouse acting as an Enterprise Data Warehouse/Lake (EDL). Various integration methods are available, including one-time data load using Spark Connector or $out operator, real-time data synchronization through Apache Kafka and Delta Live Table or Spark Streaming, and leveraging object storage. These approaches enable businesses to harness the value of their data, making timely and informed decisions based on up-to-date information. The combination provides a complete solution for modern enterprises looking to overcome data management challenges.

Unifying Identity to Drive Customer Experience at a Leading Telco`, a leading telecommunications company, sought to modernize its legacy enterprise architecture and provide a seamless customer experience. To achieve this, they collaborated with MongoDB Professional Services to implement TM Forum Open APIs, creating a unified customer identity hub called Profile Hub. This solution uses MongoDB Atlas as the core data layer, enabling easy access to customer information across various services and products. The implementation utilizes Java Spring Boot, MongoDB change streams, Kafka, and AWS services, such as Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS) and AWS Key Management Service (KMS), for a secure and event-driven architecture. The Profile Hub APIs form the core of the company's new standards-based customer data architecture, allowing upstream applications to easily leverage customer data and enabling cost savings by moving off legacy infrastructure. The project was completed in under 12 weeks, shaving several months off the original plan, and delivered new fully compliant TM Forum APIs in a single sprint.

MongoDB Atlas provides an integrated set of data and application services that enables application-driven analytics by providing developers with a unified API to land, index, query, and analyze data without having to build their own data pipelines or duplicate data. This allows teams to handle real-time analytics for high volumes of data, such as the one million metrics per second generated during a space rocket launch, using MongoDB Atlas's advanced capabilities including time series collections, query API, data federation, charts, analytics nodes, and security features like high availability and encryption. With this approach, teams can build smarter applications that drive better customer experiences and take intelligent action directly within the application on live operational data in real-time.

Informing MongoDB Product Strategy Through Analytical Insights: Meet Natalya Furmanova Natalya Furmanova joined MongoDB as a Product Manager in 2018, where she made an internal transfer to the Data Analytics team two years later. She produces quantitative insights that help make MongoDB's products better. Natalya was originally drawn to MongoDB because of its foundational technology powering many great applications and her background in software engineering. Her experience in managing systems supporting product processes and establishing KPIs led her to focus on producing quantitative insights for the Product team. The Data Analytics team culture emphasizes collaboration, knowledge sharing, and encouraging curiosity and initiative. Natalya collaborates with various teams at MongoDB, including Product Management, Engineering, and Sales, to set quantitative goals, test hypotheses, and analyze customer behavior. She is excited about upcoming cross-team initiatives and contributing her expertise to solve challenging analytical problems that drive the business forward. Joining the Data Analytics team offers an environment where individuals can make an impact and be creative in their role, working with a talented team that values collaboration and knowledge sharing.

MongoDB offers a range of employee benefits that prioritize the overall wellbeing of its employees, including mental health resources, fertility assistance, family support programs, global mobility opportunities, flexible PTO policies, employee resource groups, transgender benefits and support, and wellness events and programs. The company's goal is to provide employees with the resources they need to thrive in all aspects of their lives, from career development to personal relationships and family life. With a focus on mutual trust and communication between employees and managers, MongoDB aims to create a positive work-life blend that supports the emotional, physical, financial, and family wellbeing of its employees.

Ignite Launches Smart Spend Management Solution on MongoDB is a company that uses MongoDB Atlas for its spend management solution to unify procurement data across the enterprise, making procurement easier, better and more efficient. The company's CTO Valdemar Rolfsen praises MongoDB Atlas for its flexibility, scalability, and ability to handle advanced operations in their analytics platform. Ignite uses a mix of dedicated clusters and serverless instances, which fits well within the serverless model, allowing them to pay only for what they use without worrying about idle resources. This switch has also led to a reduction in CO2 emissions associated with large virtual machines operating continuously. The company is benefiting from credits received as part of the MongoDB for Startups program, which provides free MongoDB Atlas credits, one-on-one technical advice, co-marketing opportunities, and access to a vast partner network.

As we celebrate Black History Month, two employees from MongoDB share their personal stories of overcoming obstacles to succeed in the tech industry. Rita Henderson, an Administrative Assistant, reflects on her journey as a black woman from North Philadelphia, who overcame poverty and single parenthood to earn her degree and launch a free technology program for social justice. She emphasizes the importance of empowering underrepresented communities in tech and creating a platform where their voices can be heard. Daniel Hawthorne, a Regional Director, shares his experiences as a black man in tech sales, who faced pressure to conform to traditional norms and stereotypes. He credits MongoDB's employee resource group with helping him find his authentic self and embracing his individuality, which has led to significant personal and professional growth. Both stories highlight the importance of diversity, inclusion, and creating opportunities for underrepresented groups in the tech industry.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) has published a roadmap for sustainable finance, which aims to better integrate ESG risk considerations into the banking sector. This will require banks to re-work their scoring criteria for green loans and mortgages, and potentially reassess existing loans with new data. The impact on banks will be significant, requiring them to collect more data from diverse sources and adapt their loan origination systems quickly. Banks will need to manage evolving changes, capture different data attributes, incorporate new data types and formats, find insights from the data explosion, meet customer demands, and provide real-time sustainability risk-adjusted credit scores. MongoDB can help banks by providing a simplified architecture for green loan origination, including features such as Atlas Device Sync, Atlas Search, Atlas Data API, Data Aggregation Pipeline, Atlas Charts, and Atlas Triggers, which enable flexible data management, search, analytics, and server-side logic execution.

ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) data collection and reporting has become a corporate priority, driven by consumer preference and government regulations. Companies are struggling to meet ever more detailed and comprehensive reporting requirements, making ESG data management increasingly difficult due to the volume, variety, and velocity of data. To address this, companies are incorporating real-time data into their analysis, reporting, and scoring, leveraging technologies like cloud computing, AI, and machine learning. MongoDB Atlas is an ideal data foundation for ESG platforms, providing a flexible document data model that can adapt to rapidly changing requirements and standards.

MongoDB Atlas for Government on AWS Achieves FedRAMP Moderate Authorization` is a developer data platform designed specifically for the US public sector and ISVs building US public sector offerings. It provides a secure, high-availability environment with built-in security features, supporting various use cases including transactional workloads, time series data, search, and petabyte data storage. Built on AWS, Atlas for Government offers unparalleled security, guaranteed high availability, and support for both AWS GovCloud regions, making it uniquely positioned to power mission-critical applications across the US public sector. It is now available with FedRAMP Moderate Authorization, allowing government agencies to deploy, run, and scale MongoDB in the cloud while meeting CJIS requirements.

The C-Suite should be aware that software is continuing to transform businesses and developers are increasingly taking on more work. As a result, organizations will need to simplify their complex systems and reduce bolt-on solutions. Smarter applications with machine learning, AI, and automation will become more prevalent, driven by the integration of analytics into app development. Encryption will also play a critical role in securing data and enabling faster application development. Ultimately, a strong data strategy is becoming increasingly important for businesses to stay competitive, as data is driving business operations forward.

May Hoque is a senior software engineer on MongoDB's Atlas Data Federation team, where he helps create a distributed, federated query engine that can query data from multiple sources. He joined MongoDB as an intern in 2017 and later participated in the New Grad Program, rotating through three teams over six months. The Atlas Data Federation product enables users to query multiple data sources with a single query, unlocking valuable benefits for various use cases. May's team supports example use cases such as analyzing trends and relationships between data points, answering business questions, and aggregating insights across data sets. He is currently working on projects that add new sources of data to the Atlas Data Federation product and rearchitecting systems to improve scalability and service for customers. May credits the strong engineering culture at MongoDB, with opportunities for growth, mentorship, and collaboration, as reasons he continues to work there.

The MACH Alliance is a non-profit organization promoting composable architecture principles, specifically Microservices, API-First, Cloud-Native SaaS, and Headless, which are gaining popularity in the Retail industry. MongoDB has been a member of the alliance since 2020, acting as an "enabler" to help retailers adopt MACH principles for their applications. The benefits of MACH include increasing innovation speed while reducing operational costs and risk. A MACH architecture is ideal for retail businesses looking to deliver new experiences quickly, with Microservices allowing for independent development, API-First promoting data sharing, Cloud-Native SaaS reducing operational overhead, and Headless decoupling front-end from back-end. MongoDB's document model and flexibility make it an ideal data layer for MACH compliance, enabling speed of development, change, and scalability for retailers adopting this architecture.