MongoDB Debuts On Microsoft Azure, Google Compute Engine

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The popular MongoDB NoSQL database is now available as a managed service on both Microsoft Azure and the Google Compute Engine, MongoDB Inc. announced on Tuesday at its MongoDB World event in New York.

[Want more on MongoDB partnerships? Read Teradata, MongoDB Get Their Databases Together.]

MongoDB is already widely used in the cloud on Amazon Web Services (AWS), where some 40% to 50% of users access the document-oriented database, according to MongoDB. The exact number of MongoDB users is unknown, but the open source software has been downloaded 7 million times and has 'tens of thousands' of regular users, according to the company, which develops and supports the software. There are more than 35,000 users of the company's cloud-based MongoDB Management Service for database administration.

In addition to its use on AWS, MongoDB is available as a cloud service on IBM Softlayer and through database-as-a-service providers MongoLab and MongoHQ, among others. The Microsoft Azure and Google Compute Engine services will make the database easily accessible to vast new user communities, said Matt Asay, MongoDB VP of business development and corporate strategy at MongoDB.

'We're trying to find ways to give developers and operations managers maximum flexibility and choice,' Asay told InformationWeek.

Microsoft shops, in particular, have a desire to use MongoDB, Asay said, in part because it can run on Windows (as well as Linux) and in part because it complements and can work in combination with Microsoft SQL Server.

'This is a significant milestone in a multi-year relationship between Microsoft Open Technologies, Microsoft Azure, and MongoDB to provide developers with additional choices for a database designed for modern applications,' said Gianugo Rabellino, senior director of open source communities at Microsoft Open Technologies, in a statement.

At MongoDB World, company CEO Max Schireson noted that MongoDB was created to cope with the data scale and variety encounted in 'modern applications,' whereas relational databases were born in an era when data was 'neat and tidy.'

'Today a 'big' application has millions of users engaging constantly through their mobile phones,' Schireson said. 'It's not enough just to consummate a transaction. We expect to be able to build applications in months that used to take years, and we have to be able to update them weekly, daily, or even hourly.'

Schireson highlighted MongoDB customers including Bosch, Citi, City of Chicago, and MetLife, and he said the $150 million in venture capital the company raised last year has fueled the development of advanced concurrency, storage, and management product improvements to be highlighted on Wednesday.

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MongoDB has been stacking up powerful partnerships like cords of wood of late, inking deals with Cloudera, Microsoft, Google, Teradata, SAP, and Pentaho, among others, alongside existing partnerships with Amazon and IBM.

Doug Henschen is Executive Editor of InformationWeek, where he covers the intersection of enterprise applications with information management, business intelligence, big data and analytics. He previously served as editor in chief of Intelligent Enterprise, editor in chief of ... View Full Bio