MongoDB 4.0 announced with new mobile database, visualisation tool and enhanced clustering

ACID transactions and serverless middleware come out of beta

MongoDB 4.0 was announced today, including a number of new features and others moving from beta to general availability (GA).

First up is MongoDB Mobile. Released as a beta application, this extends MongoDB's distributed database functionality to IoT edge gateways as well as smartphones. While not the first mobile NoSQL database - rival Couchbase introduced a mobile database and sync gateway years ago - Mat Keep, director of product marketing, said it is a logical extension of MongoDB's platform approach to supporting application development. It's built on Stitch, the 'serverless' middleware platform which abstracts away some of the complexity from developers.

"We focus on meeting the needs of developers so we started by building out the database layer," Keep said. "Stitch really brings all this together so you can use QueryAnywhere to query documents whether they live on the mobile device or server using the same syntax, and Functions and Triggers [see below] that allow you to write very reactive real-time code.

"These are all value-added features that bring the mobile in the backend database together and that's what we focused on rolling out before releasing our own mobile database. Developers need sync but they also need the ability to execute code in the application and to have all that coordinated between the mobile database in the backend server."

Also new in beta is MongoDB Charts, a visualisation tool that allows users to create simple visualisations of MongoDB data in real-time.

"Charts is a powerful option for users who want self-service data visualisation BI on top of live operational data," said Keep. "We have provided and invested in interactivity with Tableau and QlickView but for some uses they're kind of overkill. If you think about Microsoft Excel and the sort of charts you can create, simple pie charts line charts - that's what Charts give you. It's really there for the fast self-service access guys."

Another new feature is MongoDB Kubernetes Operator which the company says "supports provisioning stateful, distributed database clusters, coordinating orchestration between Kubernetes and MongoDB Ops Manager." This should allow deployment across on-premises, hybrid and public cloud infrastructure.

MongoDB 4.0 also introduces a feature called Global Clusters to its cloud deployment and orchestration service Atlas, which runs on AWS, Google and Azure clouds. Atlas usage has grown by 400 per cent in the last 12 months, Keep said, and Global Clusters is a refinement to give developers more control about where data is located for reasons of low-latency or compliance.

"Global Clusters mean you can take a cluster and spread it across any region on the planet," Keep explained.

In February, MongoDB announced multi-document ACID transaction capabilities for the first time. This service has been tested by around 3,000 people in the MongoDB community, said Keep, and is now out of beta.

"It's a really significant deal. The single document model meets 80 or 90 per cent of all of applications needs, but there are some applications that require genuine multi-document transactions and there are developers who been conditioned by 30 or 40 years of relational data modelling to assume that any database that doesn't offer multi-record transactions is only suitable for niche use cases. That objection entirely goes away."

Also in general availability is the aforementioned Stitch, the middleware layer that was introduced in beta last year. This includes the QueryAnywhere feature; Functions for running JavaScript functions in a serverless environment; Triggers which are real-time notifications, messaging and for triggering functions; and Mobile Sync which is still in beta.