MongoDB for enterprise data management

Understanding MongoDB’s key features, benefits

and use cases for modern data management

Executive summary
In the data and artificial intelligence era, database systems have become the
backbone of many industries. Aside from collecting and managing large
quantities of data, these database systems can have analytics, geospatial
database management systems, time series, search capabilities and more.
MongoDB® is one of the most widely used database management programmes.
It is a document-oriented database application known for its flexibility, scalability,
ease of administration and a range of features that make it suitable for a variety
of use cases.

This guide explores MongoDB and multiple enterprise applications for this
database. The paper delves into the core of MongoDB, detailing its key features,
advantages, and the circumstances in which it proves most effective. Using
concrete examples from different industries, we underscore the database's
versatility, robustness, and readiness to handle diverse use cases. Specifically, this
guide aims to:

• Provide readers with a deep understanding of MongoDB's capabilities.

• Demonstrate how the document database fits into industry use cases.
• Highlight how MongoDB addresses business and technical challenges within the
financial, telecommunications, and automotive industries.

This guide can be used by decision-makers, IT professionals, and stakeholders in

these industries to understand the benefits of MongoDB and how they can use it
to drive innovation and business growth.
 Contents

Executive summary 1
Introduction 3
Understanding MongoDB 4
What is MongoDB? 4
Key features and benefits 4
Data format and transactionality 4
Indexing and aggregation 5
Scalability and high availability 5
MongoDB security and support 6
Use cases 7
Financial sector 8
Customer Data Management 8
Online Banking 8
Fraud Detection 8
Telecommunications 9
Subscriber and billing 9
Internet of Things (IoT) 9
Network and inventory management 9
Automotive 10
Supply chain management 10
Fleet management 10
Predictive analytics 10
Conclusion 11
Canonical for your MongoDB journey 12

2
 Introduction
MongoDB has emerged as a transformative force in enterprise data management.
Offering a flexible and scalable approach to data storage, MongoDB has
empowered organisations to break free from the constraints of traditional
relational databases and adapt to the dynamic and complex nature of modern
data. With its document-oriented architecture, distributed database capabilities,
and powerful query language, MongoDB has become a cornerstone technology
for businesses across various industries.

It is suited for expanding projects and applications in multiple use cases such as
content management systems, mobile applications, Internet of Things (IoT) and
real-time analytics. Although MongoDB can be applied in virtually any industry, it
is particularly well-suited to the needs of the rapidly changing financial, telco and
automotive sectors.

In the financial sector, banks, insurance companies, and investment firms face
massive data volumes, high transaction rates, and strict regulations. Traditional
relational databases, such as Structured Query Language (SQL), are poorly
equipped to handle the diversity, volume, and speed of data generated in this
industry. Using traditional SQL databases can result in operational inefficiencies
and missed insights. MongoDB and other document databases offer solutions to
these challenges with their adaptable Javascript Object Orientation (JSON)-like
structures and horizontal scalability. MongoDB's capabilities have significantly
benefited financial institutions by reducing costs, enhancing user experiences,
and ensuring compliance with stringent data-sharing regulations.

The telecommunications industry also faces challenges in managing vast amounts

of data from client interactions, service usage, and billing specifics. This
enormous data volume, often overwhelming for traditional databases, can lead to
system slowdowns and customer dissatisfaction. With its flexible and scalable
data format, MongoDB offers an effective solution. This database handles
extensive volumes of structured and unstructured data, streamlining data storage
and analysis processes. In the telecommunications sector, MongoDB's
implementation empowers efficient management of customer data, call logs, and
service usage information. This provides valuable insights into client behaviour
and facilitates the delivery of personalised services.

The automotive industry is a critical economic sector. With the increasing

relevance of technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and big
data analytics, the industry grapples with managing the substantial volumes of
data generated by modern automobiles. MongoDB provides a robust and scalable
solution. MongoDB's flexibility, schema adaptability, and capacity to handle
semi-structured and unstructured data make it ideal for managing diverse
automotive data. Using MongoDB's developer data platform facilitates efficient
operations and minimises downtime.

Throughout this guide, we will expand on these enterprise use cases and explain
how you can use MongoDB to streamline operations, enhance customer
experiences and drive innovation.

3
 Understanding MongoDB
What is MongoDB?
MongoDB is a document-oriented database management application founded in
2007 by MongoDB Inc. It is designed for high-volume data storage and can handle
diverse data types, such as structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data.

In MongoDB, the data is stored in documents using a JSON-like structure to

represent and interact with data. These collections of documents are then stored
in a database. The document-based data model makes it possible to model the
data without using the complicated multi-table joins imposed by relational
databases.

Moreover, MongoDB supports a rich query language allowing full CRUD (Create,
Read, Update, Delete) operations, indexing, and real-time aggregation. This
means that MongoDB can be used for numerous types of applications. It's
particularly well-suited for evolving projects that need flexibility and applications
that require a highly scalable environment.

Key features and benefits

MongoDB is one of the most popular NoSQL databases. In addition, MongoDB is
a highly versatile data management solution that provides robust scaling,
consistency, fault tolerance, agility, and flexibility capabilities to facilitate rapid
development and low operational downtime. This section discusses the most
prominent MongoDB features and benefits.

Data format and transactionality

MongoDB is known for its flexible data store and JSON-like document format.
MongoDB stores records as documents, specifically as Binary Javascript Object
Notation (BSON) documents gathered in collections.

Database

Collection Collection

Document Document

Document Document

Document Document

MongoDB data structure

4
 Given that a document-based data model can represent rich, hierarchical data
structures, it’s often possible to model data without the complicated multi-table
joins imposed by relational databases. For example, suppose you’re modelling
products for an e-commerce web application. Product information might consist
of multiple tables if you use a fully normalised relational data model. You must
write a complicated SQL query full of joins to get a product representation from
the database shell. Consequently, the database setup can be complex, slowing
development time and the end application.

By contrast, with a document database, your product’s information can be

modelled within a single document. Furthermore, the JSON-like structure
describes an understandable representation of the products with a hierarchy.
MongoDB’s query capabilities are specifically designed to manipulate both
structured documents and unstructured data, making it easy for people to use.

Indexing and aggregation

MongoDB efficiently searches data with text, geospatial, or time-series

dimensions. In addition, it includes features to analyse data, including support for
multiple concurrent queries, indexing, and aggregation. Recent versions of
MongoDB also include support for distributed, multi-document, multi-collection,
multi-database, and multi-shard transactions with a high data integrity guarantee.

Each document element in a MongoDB document is indexed with primary and

secondary indices. This minimises the time needed to search the database.
Instead of scanning through each document one at a time for a particular entry,
the database engine can use the index to filter out information. Given how quickly
queries can be answered, MongoDB's indexing capability is among its most
valuable features.

Performing actions on the grouped data in MongoDB also enables you to obtain a
single or computed result. It offers three aggregations: a map-reduce function, an
aggregation pipeline, and special-purpose aggregation techniques.

Scalability and high availability

Popular web applications can experience high web traffic because of user
engagement in the content at a given time. During this time, it is essential to
ensure that the databases backing them are scalable to adjust to user demands.
MongoDB is built on a horizontal scale-out architecture, this means adding more
servers to distribute the load across multiple nodes.

Server 1 Server 2 Server 3 Server X

MongoDB horizontal scaling

A MongoDB database can be scaled horizontally through the ‘sharding’ and

‘replica set features’. These scalability features also have benefits for fault
tolerance in a MongoDB database deployment. The figure below shows the
sharding model.

5
 client

config-server router
(mongod) (mongos)

shard1 shard2 shard3 REPLICA

(mongod) (mongod) (mongod) SET

MongoDB replication and sharding

Sharding is a method for distributing data across multiple machines. There are
various components in a sharded cluster:

• client – this component is an application server that uses drivers such as

python, javascript, C#, C++ and more to integrate with the MongoDB router.
• router (mongos) – this is a mangos operator that acts as an interface between
client applications and the sharded cluster.
• config-server (mongod) – stores metadata and configuration settings
for the cluster.
• multiple shards (mongod) – contain a subset of the sharded data, wherein each
shard can be deployed as a replica set. The multiple shards represent a
horizontal scale-out architecture since shards are deployed in multiple servers.

A replica set is a group of mongod processes that maintain the same data set in a
shard or config-server. Replica sets provide redundancy and high availability and
are the basis for all production deployments.

Scalability and high availability ensure consistent response times, simplify system
maintenance, and decrease operational costs. In addition, applications should
handle increasing numbers of users who use the applications concurrently. These
requirements in terms of scalability are features that MongoDB can support with
its horizontal scale-out architecture. Implementing them in web applications and
other use cases can bring numerous advantages for businesses.

MongoDB security and support

Learn more on how to
secure and support your When running a database in a production environment, there are other database
MongoDB. considerations: database security and support.
Whitepaper: A guide to
MongoDB® security and Database security is essential for safeguarding information and ensuring data
support integrity and availability. While many new database systems struggle to create
security guidelines, MongoDB has robust security features. It is known for its
security implementations and practices that help protect data and ensure the
integrity of the database. For example, users can easily implement benchmarking
guidelines such as those published by the Center for Internet Security (CIS).

Users can complement these security capabilities with a dedicated support team.
A support team is essential when dealing with critical and complex infrastructure
systems, operating systems and applications such as databases. The support
organisation provides specialised resources and expertise to ensure the overall
technology stack functions optimally, securely and smoothly.

6
 Use cases
This section provides an overview of the application of MongoDB in various
industries, focusing on the financial, telecommunications, and automotive
sectors. The use cases discussed here demonstrate MongoDB's adaptability and
durability as a solution for tackling complicated data management issues in
various operational scenarios.

7
 Financial sector
Financial institutions handle vast amounts of sensitive and confidential data,
including customer information, transaction details, and regulatory compliance
records. A trusted database ensures the security and privacy of this sensitive
information, protecting it from unauthorised access, breaches, or cyber threats.

MongoDB is one of the most widely used databases in this sector. It provides a
sturdy, adaptable and trustworthy foundation. It also can safeguard sensitive
customer data while facilitating swift responses to rapidly evolving situations.

Here are the key use cases for MongoDB in the financial sector.

Customer Data Management

Within financial services, MongoDB is often used as the database for customer
data management. MongoDB can store and manage customer profiles, account
information and transaction histories. Its flexibility allows for handling diverse
data types related to customer records, and it can easily accommodate changes in
customer data structures as regulations and business requirements evolve. Its
document-oriented model allows for flexible and dynamic schemas, adapting to
diverse customer information.

Online Banking

Another area where MongoDB offers a robust database platform is online

banking – which covers any web or mobile banking apps. These applications often
need to store and retrieve customer account information, transaction history, and
payment data as fast as possible. MongoDB can provide the back-end data
storage for these applications, supporting fast and secure access. Its scalability
ensures a seamless user experience, and its flexible data model accommodates
the evolving requirements of digital banking platforms.

Fraud detection

The financial sector is particularly susceptible to fraudulent activities due to

factors that make it an attractive target for malicious actors. Some key reasons
include high-stake transactions, insider threats, data breaches, and more. The
financial sector must have a database that can be used for fraud detection
systems. MongoDB can store transaction data, user behaviour patterns, and other
information that is essential for fraud detection. In addition, it can handle high
volumes of data and perform real-time analytics, making it valuable in identifying
fraudulent activities.

Canonical services for the financial sector

Canonical offers comprehensive financial services (FinServ) open source

solutions and expertise. From hybrid multi-cloud strategy to Kubernetes, we
can help you accelerate innovation, drive business agility and reduce costs.

Contact us for your MongoDB and database needs

8
 Telecommunications sector
A trusted database is fundamental to the smooth and secure operation of
telecommunications services, supporting various aspects of network
management, customer services, compliance, and fraud prevention. This section
highlights the most critical use cases for MongoDB within the telco industry.

Subscribers and billing

The telco sector has several technology challenges, including storing and
processing large amounts of data collected from multiple sources. Operators
collect data on how clients utilise their services, engage with various businesses,
and the specifics of the billing and charging applied to the services they receive.
The difficulty comes from sorting through this vast amount of data to find
insightful information, deduce customer behaviour and usage trends, and then
generate reliable predictions on service demand, data volume, and resource
consumption. The data size and speed at which data must be processed in
telecommunications are too challenging for traditional relational databases to
handle. If database operations are not agile and reliable, it leads to system
slowdown and low service quality – this makes MongoDB the best database fit
across multiple use cases.

Internet of Things (IoT)

Communication networks increasingly carry data from IoT devices. MongoDB is a

powerful database technology that can be used for data storage, retrieval and
aggregation, and real-time processing of IoT data, such as alerts and sensor
events. It is an ideal choice for managing the diverse data generated by
connected devices and sensors because of its indexing, aggregation, format and
scaling capabilities.

Network and inventory management

A suitable database is integral to telco network management because it provides

a structured and efficient way to store, manage, and analyse the diverse and vast
amounts of data generated and used in telecommunications networks. MongoDB
can store network performance data, including equipment status, network logs,
and real-time telemetry data. It allows for monitoring and analysing network
performance, troubleshooting, and proactive maintenance as it can provide near
real-time data feed.

Telco companies often manage extensive inventories of network equipment and

service resources. This is why use cases such as service provisioning and inventory
management can be streamlined with a database technology like MongoDB. It
can help track the allocation and availability of these resources through its
storage, retrieval and scaling capabilities.

Canonical open source solutions for telco

Canonical open source solutions are building blocks that provide a unified
approach to meet any current or future use cases in telco using multiple
database, AI, cloud and edge technologies.

Contact us for your MongoDB and database needs

9
 Automotive sector
The automotive industry is a vast and complex sector. It includes all those
companies and activities involved in manufacturing vehicles, including most
components, such as engines, electronic control units (ECUs) and bodies. The
automotive sector is undergoing a technological revolution due to the growing
importance of new technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and
big data analytics.

Managing and utilising the enormous amounts of data that modern automobiles
create is a critical challenge the automotive industry faces. Innovators are tasked
with producing great user experiences and need to make effective use of data to
deliver value.

MongoDB is trusted by many enterprises in the automotive sector. These

organisations value it for its flexibility, scalability, and real-time capabilities. Here
are some notable use cases.

Supply chain management

The first use case is supply chain management, wherein a database stores data on
automotive parts and components through the supply chain. Manufacturers use
databases to manage inventory, order parts, and ensure efficient production
processes. MongoDB can be used to store and collect data related to the
inventory of automotive parts and components and can be leveraged for data
analytics and reporting. This includes details on the types and quantities of parts,
storage locations and order history. Its flexibility allows for easy adaptation to
changes in the types of parts and inventory requirements. MongoDB can also be
used in demand forecasting and supplier management.

Fleet management

Another use case is fleet management, wherein systems use databases to track
vehicle locations, maintenance schedules and driver behaviour. Fleet operators
rely on databases to optimise vehicle use, reduce costs and ensure safety.
MongoDB can play a considerable role in real-time vehicle tracking as it can store
and manage real-time location data. In addition, it can maintain logs and reports
such as maintenance reports and schedules.

Predictive analytics
Finally, MongoDB can be a valuable database for implementing automotive
predictive maintenance systems. Predictive maintenance aims to prevent
equipment failures and reduce downtime by predicting when maintenance is
needed based on the condition of the equipment and historical data. MongoDB's
flexibility, scalability, and real-time data processing capabilities make it well-
suited for this application. In addition, it can process real-time data scales and can
be integrated with different machine-learning applications.

Canonical open source solutions for automotive

Trusted by major automotive companies, Canonical delivers a full suite of

open-source solutions and services that help you provide security, safety and
innovation for digital transformation in automotive.

Contact us for your MongoDB and database needs

10
 Conclusion
MongoDB is a versatile NoSQL database management system that has
transformed how vast amounts of data are stored and accessed. MongoDB is a
schema-less database, which means it can represent rich, enormous and
hierarchical data structures. It is scalable due to its architecture and sharding
capability. It has an indexing capability and is efficient in data search and multiple
data dimensions. In addition, it is a well-established database that showcases
stability, supportability and security standards.

The use of MongoDB depends on your specific project requirements. Despite its
scalability, flexibility, and ability to handle unstructured data, there may be better
choices for some scenarios. MongoDB can outperform traditional relational
databases in complex queries and high data volumes.
MongoDB's use cases in the financial, telecommunications, and automotive
industries highlight its adaptability and effectiveness in managing and analysing
massive amounts of data. Its use cases demonstrate its adaptability to the
ever-evolving challenges of data management and analysis in different industries.

If you need help deciding between MongoDB and other databases, Canonical is
here to help. Canonical offers security patching, support, advisory and managed
services for databases like MongoDB so you can seamlessly deploy and run your
database on any cloud. Contact us to learn more.

11
 Canonical for your MongoDB journey
Canonical can support you at every stage of your MongoDB journey
(from Day 0 to Day 2):

0 Design

Proof of Concept (PoC)

We work with you to build a PoC before investing in infrastructure for advanced
use cases. This allows you to assess your return on investment carefully.
Data Solutions Training
Train your team to use our data solutions, from understanding all features to
customisation options, deployment and admin tasks.

1 Deployment

Data and/or infrastructure migration

Migration from one infrastructure or database to the new Canonical
MongoDB solution.
MongoDB deployment
Deploy, set up, configure Charmed MongoDB in your production environment
using the Charmed MongoDB Machine or Kubernetes operator.

2 Maintenance and support

24x7x365 Support and industry-leading SLAs

Get hands-on monitoring and support for your MongoDB application, with
guaranteed SLA.
Management of MongoDB in the production environment
Self manage or outsource the life-cycle management of your mission-critical
database application to Canonical’s experts.

Note: Canonical also offers other data and AI/ML solutions such as Kafka, Spark, OpenSearch,
MySQL, PostgreSQL, Kubeflow, MLFlow

Our data products are constantly expanding and improving. Contact us about
your unique requirements. We are happy to assist you.

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“MongoDB” is a trademark or registered trademark of MongoDB Inc. Other

trademarks are property of their respective owners. Charmed MongoDB is not
sponsored, endorsed, or affiliated with MongoDB, Inc.

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