Introduction to MongoDB

MongoDB is the world’s most popular NoSQL document database. Rather than using traditional relational tables, it stores data in a flexible, JSON-like format. Developers value it for its ease of scaling, strong security features, and reliable performance. With tools such as AI-enhanced search, sharding, and encryption, MongoDB offers a comprehensive platform for handling diverse data needs.

MongoDB 8.0 is the fastest and highest-performing version of MongoDB yet, performing around 32% faster than the previous version of MongoDB (Source: https://www.mongodb.com/company/blog/mongodb-8-0-improving-performance-avoiding-regressions). In addition to performance gains, MongoDB 8.0 delivers various improvements in aggregation, security, sharding, replication, and more, such as the following:

• Sharding enhancements distribute data across shards up to 50 times faster and at up to 50% lower starting cost, lowering the infrastructure cost of getting started by up to $5,000 (USD) per year
• Improved support for a wide range of search and AI applications at higher scale and lower cost, using quantized vectors (compressed representations of full-fidelity vectors) that require up to 96% less memory and are faster to retrieve while preserving accuracy
• Expanded support for MongoDB’s Queryable Encryption, a groundbreaking innovation developed by the MongoDB Cryptography Research Group, to also support range queries

This book provides a comprehensive overview of what MongoDB, particularly version 8.0, can offer for your development needs. While we strive to be comprehensive and current, MongoDB is constantly adding new features. For the most detailed and up-to-date information, check out the MongoDB documentation at https://mongodb.com/docs.

In this chapter, we’re going to cover the following topics:

• Why MongoDB?
• Who uses MongoDB?
• MongoDB architecture
• What’s new in MongoDB 8.0?