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When to Use MongoDB Rather than MySQL (or Other RDBMS): The Billing Example | Javalobby

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When to Use MongoDB

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NoSQL is a hot buzz in the air for a pretty long time (well, it's not only a buzz anymore).
However, when should we really use it?
Best Practices for MongoDB
NoSQL products (and among them MongoDB) should be used to meet challenges. If you have one of
the following challenges, you should consider MongoDB:

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You Expect a High Write Load

MongoDB by default prefers high insert rate over transaction safety. If you need to load tons of data
lines with a low business value for each one, MongoDB should t. Don't do that with $1M transactions
recording or at least in these cases do it with an extra safety.
You need High Availability in an Unreliable Environment (Cloud and Real Life)
Setting replicaSet (set of servers that act as Master-Slaves) is easy and fast. Moreover, recovery
from a node (or a data center) failure is instant, safe and automatic
You need to Grow Big (and Shard Your Data)
Databases scaling is hard (a single MySQL table performance will degrade when crossing the 5-10GB
per table). If you need to partition and shard your database, MongoDB has a built in easy solution for
that.
Your Data is Location Based
MongoDB has built in spacial functions, so nding relevant data from specic locations is fast and
accurate.

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Your Data Set is Going to be Big (starting from 1GB) and Schema is Not Stable
Adding new columns to RDBMS can lock the entire database in some database, or create a major
load and performance degradation in other. Usually it happens when table size is larger than 1GB (and
can be major pain for a system like BillRun that is described bellow and has several TB in a single
table). As MongoDB is schema-less, adding a new eld, does not effect old rows (or documents) and
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What's wrong in Java 8,

part V: Tuples

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When to Use MongoDB Rather than MySQL (or Other RDBMS): The Billing Example | Javalobby

will be instant. Other plus is that you do not need a DBA to modify your schema when application
changes.

Dev of the Week: PierreHugues Charbonneau

You Don't have a DBA

If you don't have a DBA, and you don't want to normalize your data and do joins, you should consider
MongoDB. MongoDB is great for class persistence, as classes can be serialized to JSON and stored
AS IS in MongoDB. Note: If you are expecting to go big, please notice that you will need to follow
some best practices to avoid pitfalls.

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BillRun - Billing on top of MongoDB | MUG IL, Feb 2014 from oc666
Real World Case Study: Billing
In the last ILMUG, Ofer Cohen presented BillRun, a next generation Open Source billing solution that
utilizes MongoDB as its data store. This billing system runs in production in the fastest growing cellular
operator in Israel, where it processes over 500M CDRs (call data records) each month. In his
presentation Ofer presented how this system utilizes MongoDB advantages:

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When to Use MongoDB Rather than MySQL (or Other RDBMS): The Billing Example | Javalobby

1. Schema-less design enables rapid introduction of new CDR types to the system. It let BillRun
keep the data store generic.
2. Scale BillRun production site already manages several TB in a single table, w/o being limited by
adding new elds or being limited by growth
3. Rapid replicaSet enables meeting regulation with easy to setup multi data center DRP and HA
solution.
4. Sharding enables linear and scale out growth w/o running out of budget.
5. With over 2,000/s CDR inserts, MongoDB architecture is great for a system that must support high
insert load. Yet you can guarantee transactions with ndAndModify (which is slower) and twophase commit (application wise).
6. Developer oriented queries, enable developers write a elegant queries.
7. Location based is being utilized to analyze users usage and determining where to invest in cellular
infrastructure.
Bottom Line
MongoDB is great tool, that should be used in the right scenarios to gain unfair advantage in your
market. BillRun is a ne example for that.
Keep Performing,
Moshe Kaplan
Published at DZone with permission of Moshe Kaplan, author and DZone MVB. (source)
(Note: Opinions expressed in this article and its replies are the opinions of their respective authors and not those of DZone, Inc.)

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When to Use MongoDB Rather than MySQL (or Other RDBMS): The Billing Example | Javalobby

First Last replied on Mon, 2014/03/03 - 8:26am

> You Don't have a DBA
srlsly?

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Alex Staveley replied on Wed, 2014/03/05 - 10:12am

Nice article. I have heard Web developers makes the point that since Mongo is
more JSON friendly that is another argument to use it. So when AJAX requests are
sending and receiving if you use MongoDB, you get the option to persist and
retrieve JSON very easily almost negating the need for a traditional server. What do
you think of that?

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Sumendra Maharjan replied on Mon, 2014/06/09 - 11:48am

true, mysql and mongodb has their own territory, mongodb is new in the world of
database and is rapidly adopted by complex web application in conjunction with
nodejs. But in performancewise, mongodb wins as it is BSON based and no need of
JOIN operator to query multiple tables. Mongodb is popular and easy to used
because of it's simplicity and javascript friendly. Read Comparison Between MySQL
and MongoDB

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When to Use MongoDB Rather than MySQL (or Other RDBMS): The Billing Example | Javalobby

Moshe Kaplan replied on Tue, 2014/06/10 - 5:08pmin response to: Alex Staveley
Hi Alex,
You are absolutly right!
The End to End JSON support is one of the best features of the MEAN platform
(that includes MongoDB as its initial),
Keep Performing,
Moshe Kaplan

Login or register to post comments

Moshe Kaplan replied on Tue, 2014/06/10 - 5:09pm

in response to: Sumendra Maharjan
Hi Sumendra,
This is a good analysis. Please notice that you need to be careful in MongoDB data
design to gain best performance,
Keep Performing,
Moshe Kaplan

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