MongoDB, the open-source NoSQL database, was recently named “Database Management System of the Year” by DB-Engines – with good reason. DeveloperTech (DT) spoke with Matt Asay (MA), VP of Business Development and Corporate Strategy, about why customers should choose Mongo…
DT: Can you give a bit of background to MongoDB and why organisations should choose it?
MA: One of the things which is most interesting about MongoDB is the product was formed before the company was, and it was formed out of a need which a lot of enterprises need today. When the founders started in 2009, they were actually building a PaaS company.
At some point they decided, “this is too ambitious to build a PaaS system,” especially at that time, so they thought, “let’s focus on the area we think is strongest” … and that was MongoDB.
They looked at other systems – MySQL, PostGreSQL, and other open source systems – and ultimately decided they had to build their own in order to get the kind of scalability that they needed, and the kind of development flexibility that they needed.
So MongoDB is, as founder Dwight Merriman says, “the database he always wanted at his previous companies,” and he started DoubleClick – an early online advertising company he sold to Google for a few billion dollars – and he would have like it there for its scalability, flexibility, and ease of use.
DT: You mentioned scalability as being at MongoDB’s core. With the online environment being so vast, how well does it deal with the issue?
