Why We’re Celebrating Developers (And Why We Always Will)

No matter the future, developers will build it.

This is the fundamental message for MongoDB’s Love Your Developers campaign, which we created to celebrate, recognize, and support all that developers have done and continue to do.

When the campaign launched earlier this year, it took a more historical view on how developers have shaped the history of computing from its earliest days — even before computers were invented.

We wanted to show that — even in the eras when hardware was the primary focus — programming language pioneers, like Grace Hopper, and innovative engineers, like Jerry Lawson, fundamentally shaped the future through software.

(To read more about the campaign, and why we launched it, check out our announcement blog article.)

Introducing the MongoDB Developer Spotlight Series

Just like in the past, today’s technologies aren’t developed in a vacuum. It takes entire teams of developers — experimenting, innovating, testing — to build and deploy applications that transform how we interact with the world.

That is why we’re introducing our MongoDB Developer Spotlight Series.

Our aim is to celebrate the diversity of experiences and approaches that exist among and throughout the global developer community. To do this, we will highlight stories from today’s community champions, developer advocates, newbies, senior engineers — and more.

It’s our hope that these stories will help inspire the next generation of developers who will further shape our future.

In this new series, we’ll introduce you to developers like Trina Yau.

Trina went from being a pharmacist to a software engineer at Cisco. While initially concerned about her nontraditional background, she was later told by recruiters that her unique journey was a strength, rather than a weakness. This revelation showed her that, in order to become a developer, one must only possess a curious mind. In other words, there is no singular path to working in software.

In a forthcoming post, Trina (who is also a MongoDB Community Creator) will share with us why developing isn’t just a way to earn a living, but a way to connect with people and share experiences through technology.

This series will also spotlight developers like Justin Jenkins, who is a Software Development Engineer at Pushpay and a MongoDB Community Creator. He got his start at an early age, building his own computers and coding in BASIC - before he even knew that developing was a thing.

In a future post, Justin will share tips based on his own experiences. For example, in his view, newbie developers know more than they think when it comes to getting started.

Through MongoDB’s social channels, we’ll share all of these developers’ insights, tips, advice, and origin stories.

So stay tuned. And let us know what you think. #LoveYourDevelopers

Because no matter what the future holds, it’s developers who will build it.

If you’d like to learn how you can get involved in MongoDB’s own Developer Community, head on over to our Community Forum. There, you’ll find updates, announcements, and ways to interact with other developers.

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MongoDB Atlas for Telecommunications Launches in Dallas, Alongside AT&T and Cisco

MongoDB has officially launched MongoDB Atlas for Telecommunications, a new program for telecommunications companies to accelerate innovation and maximize the use of their data to better serve customers. The program includes expert-led innovation workshops, tailored technology partnerships, and industry-specific knowledge accelerators that provide customized training paths designed for modernization and innovative digital services leveraging the potential of modern 5G networks. Visit the MongoDB Atlas for Industries page to learn more. MongoDB Atlas for Telecommunications launched against a backdrop of hundreds of developers and industry IT leaders at our MongoDB.local gathering in Dallas. Throughout the event, speakers and product announcements emphasized how the telecommunications industry is currently utilizing MongoDB Atlas to gain a competitive advantage. Atlas for the Edge 5G has opened up new revenue streams for Communication Service Providers (CSPs), with whole new industries racing to take advantage of the up to 100x improvements in speed and throughput that these new networks offer. However, while these networks offer significant speed enhancements, the underlying cloud computing environments, without any optimization, remain the primary bottleneck to delivering the sorts of data processing capabilities that these new, ultra-low latency applications demand. Atlas for the Edge addresses this issue by providing reliable data connectivity across the cloud, data centers, and devices, catering to critical real-time use cases like machine learning, disaster recovery, and autonomous vehicles. MongoDB's Atlas developer data platform ensures consistent data management, irrespective of the data's origin, storage location, or destination. This solution not only offers the ability to deploy MongoDB at any edge location, thereby enhancing performance and cost efficiency but also unifies data across various sources, ensuring a singular, dependable data source. Furthermore, with Atlas Stream Processing , real-time data processing from numerous devices, including sensors and mobile phones, is made possible. This allows for functions like anomaly detection and predictive maintenance on data sets. In terms of security, data encryption is ensured at all stages, and users can also benefit from advanced access controls or integrate with external identity management solutions. You can learn more about how MongoDB and Verizon are building the next generation of mobile 5G networks on our Mobile Edge Computing page. Atlas Stream Processing Atlas Stream Processing is especially beneficial for CSPs as it aids in real-time network performance analysis, ensuring quicker responses and enhancing customer experiences. With the ability to quickly detect anomalies, CSPs can maintain consistent network performance. Moreover, with data security as a priority in today's digital landscape, Atlas Stream Processing encrypts data both in transit and at rest, ensuring the safe processing of CSP data streams. For CSPs, being able to adapt and react in real time is essential. By leveraging Atlas Stream Processing, they can optimize operations, offer improved services, and make data-driven decisions promptly, ensuring they remain competitive in the ever-evolving industry. Vector Search Atlas Vector Search , a new addition to the MongoDB Atlas product line, enables CSPs to build intelligent applications powered by semantic search and generative AI over unstructured data, giving customers results that go beyond keyword matching and that infer meaning and intent from a user’s search term. By employing Atlas Vector Search, CSPs can quickly sift through vast datasets, including customer profiles, service logs, or network patterns, to find relevant insights. Such capabilities can enhance customer service, as CSPs can more readily understand user behavior and preferences, helping to uncover new opportunities to address customer needs. Additionally, as CSPs diversify their offerings and integrate more with digital services, the ability to conduct nuanced searches becomes essential for product innovation and market differentiation. Learn more about Atlas Vector Search on our product page . Attendees of MongoDB.local Dallas were also treated to talks by Luke Rice, Director of Technology at AT&T, and Shaun Roberts, Principal Engineer at Cisco, both of whom outlined how they were utilizing MongoDB Atlas to transform how they do business. Going on a modernization journey with AT&T Rice presented an overview of AT&T's platform for address management, validation, and qualification. This platform is crucial for the accurate deployment of products and services to customers, determining service eligibility based on location, and handling address inconsistencies from various sources. It supports both geocoding and reverse geocoding, translating addresses to geospatial coordinates and vice versa. It interacts with third-party address data providers and has the ability to match and merge inconsistent address data. The system's importance extends beyond mere validation and service qualification, heavily influencing much of AT&T's product and service lifecycle. From planning where to build out infrastructure, to working with construction and engineering during builds, and setting up services in areas where addresses are yet to be finalized, the system plays a pivotal role. Additionally, it aids in sales, order provisioning, billing, and dispatching for service management, handling around 380 million unique addresses and managing around 14 million daily transactions. Currently, AT&T’s address management system consists of several aging and sometimes overlapping systems, creating issues with maintenance and efficiency. AT&T is on a modernization journey to integrate approximately 12 of these systems into a singular solution, the Intelligent Network Location Application Platform (IN-LAP). At the center of IN-LAP is MongoDB Atlas. The primary benefit of MongoDB Atlas to AT&T is its simplified and flexible data structure, which helps them create their single source of truth. And with MongoDB’s flexible schema, AT&T is ready to continuously adapt digital products to new data demands and technologies, like edge computing and AI, without extensive and time-consuming database redesign. MongoDB Atlas also offers AT&T benefits from reduced data duplication, multiple data ingestion options, and built-in geospatial functions, allowing them to perform calculations like point-to-point distances without third-party tools. We do require our Solutions like [IN-LAP] to be multi-region, and so that [multi-cloud] being built into the Atlas platform enables me to just focus on building value. Luke Rice, Director of Technology at AT&T Ultimately, accelerating time to market for new products is key for Rice and AT&T. MongoDB Atlas offers AT&T a level of "platformization" that allows developers to focus solely on delivering business value, relieving them of the operational intricacies and management responsibilities of running a large and mission-critical database. Lastly, MongoDB’s native multi-region, multi-cloud support gives Rice and his team reassurance that they can easily scale IN-LAP to different regions and countries in the future. How Cisco empowers its workforce to build a better customer experience Roberts shared how Cisco’s Customer Experience (CX) team leverages MongoDB in the company’s groundbreaking Ascension product. Ascension is a platform that empowers people from across the company, including those with little to no coding knowledge, to develop customer-focused innovations using a cloud-native, low-to-no-code solution. Shaun and his CX team had specific requirements for Ascension. They wanted: A scalable, production-grade system. To engage a broader spectrum of their development base, including those not traditionally involved in coding. A cutting-edge, compliant solution upholding Cisco's stringent security standards. A solution that could be managed by a compact, volunteer-based tiger team. Initially, they experimented with a range of on-prem solutions, including OpenStack, VMware, Arango, and Microsoft SQL. Unfortunately, none met their criteria, particularly when it came to scaling the usage of Ascension. This was especially true for their core application, the Cisco Virtual Tac Engineer, which manages tens of thousands of cases daily. Ascension cut development time by 40% to 60% compared with traditional methods. In the end, to meet their ambitious goals and stringent requirements, Cisco built its solution using MongoDB Atlas. MongoDB Atlas now serves as the primary database for Ascension and also operates as the de facto database-as-a-service (DBaaS) for client apps built using Ascension, with 98% of all applications built by Ascension users running on MongoDB Atlas. With MongoDB at its core, Ascension helps power some of the most exciting innovations across Cisco Customer Experience, helping the company bring amazing efficiency and service to its customers. The results speak for themselves: Ascension cut development time by 40% to 60% compared with traditional methods. Over a year, Ascension user numbers surged from 20 to over 900. Ascension processes 450,000 to 500,000 workflows daily, amounting to about 12 million monthly. Ascension uptime stands at an impressive 99.9%, with the minor downtime attributed to upgrades. On average, an engineer at Cisco dedicating time to Ascension spends 12 hours a week on it. Learn more about how to take advantage of the MongoDB Atlas for Telecommunications program on our MongoDB for Industries page.

November 13, 2023
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MongoDB’s 2024 Year in Review

It’s hard to believe that another year is almost over! 2024 was a transformative year for MongoDB, and it was marked by both innovation and releases that further our commitment to empowering customers, developers, and partners worldwide. So without further ado, let’s dive into MongoDB’s 2024 highlights. We’ll also share our executive team’s predictions of what 2025 might have in store. A look back at 2024 MongoDB 8.0: The most performant version of MongoDB ever In October we released MongoDB 8.0 , the fastest, most resilient, secure, and reliable version of MongoDB yet. Architectural optimizations in MongoDB 8.0 have significantly improved the database’s performance, with 36% faster reads and 59% higher throughput for updates. Our new architecture also makes horizontal scaling cheaper and faster. Finally, working with encrypted data is easier than ever, thanks to the addition of range queries in Queryable Encryption (which allows customers to encrypt, store, and perform queries directly on data). Whether you’re a startup building your first app, or you’re a global enterprise managing mission-critical workloads, MongoDB 8.0 offers unmatched power and flexibility, solidifying MongoDB’s place as the world’s most popular document database. Learn more about what makes 8.0 the best version of MongoDB ever on the MongoDB 8.0 page . Delivering customer value with the MongoDB AI Applications Program AI applications have become a cornerstone of modern software, and MongoDB is committed to equipping customers with the technology, tools, and support they need to succeed on their AI journey. That’s why we launched the MongoDB AI Applications Program (MAAP) in 2024, a comprehensive program designed to accelerate the development of AI applications. By offering customers resources like access to AI specialists, an ecosystem of leading AI and tech companies, and AI architectural best practices supported by integrated services, MAAP helps solve customers’ most pressing business challenges, unlocks competitive advantages, and accelerates time to value for AI investments. Overall, MAAP’s aim is to set customers on the path to AI success. Visit the MongoDB AI Applications Program page or watch our session from AWS re:Invent to learn more! Advancing AI with MongoDB Atlas Vector Search In 2024, MongoDB further cemented its role in the AI space with enhancements to MongoDB Atlas Vector Search . Recognized in 2024 (for the second consecutive year!) as one of the most loved vector databases , MongoDB continues to provide a scalable, unified, and secure platform for building cutting-edge AI use cases. Recent advancements like vector quantization in Atlas Vector Search help deliver even more value to our customers, enabling them to scale applications to billions of vectors at a lower cost. Head over to our Atlas Vector Search quick start guide to get started with Atlas Vector Search today, or visit our AI resources hub to learn more about how MongoDB can power AI applications. Search Nodes: Performance at scale Search functionality is indispensable in modern applications, and with Atlas Search Nodes, organizations can now optimize their search workloads like never before. By providing dedicated infrastructure for Atlas Search and Vector Search workloads, Search Nodes ensure high performance (e.g., a 40–60% decrease in query times), scalability, and reliability, even for the most demanding use cases. As of this year , Search Nodes are generally available across AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure. This milestone underscores MongoDB’s commitment to delivering powerful solutions that scale alongside our customers’ needs. To learn more about Search Nodes, check out our documentation or watch our tutorial . Looking ahead: MongoDB’s 2025 predictions After the excitement of the past few years, 2025 will be defined by ensuring that technology investments deliver tangible value. Organizations remain excited about the potential AI and emerging technologies hold to solve real business challenges, but are increasingly focused on maintaining a return on investment. “Enterprises need to innovate faster than ever, but speed is no longer the only measure of success. Increasingly, organizations are laser-focused on ensuring that their technology investments directly address critical business challenges and provide clear ROI and competitive advantage—whether it’s optimizing supply chains, delivering hyper-personalized customer experiences, or scaling operations efficiently,” said Sahir Azam, Chief Product Officer at MongoDB. “In 2025, I expect to see organizations make significant strides in driving this innovation and efficiency by applying AI to more production use cases and by maturing the way they leverage their data to build compelling and differentiated customer experiences.” Indeed, we expect to see organizations make more strategic investments in emerging technologies like gen AI—innovating with a sharp focus on solving business challenges. “In 2025, we can expect the focus to shift from ‘what AI can do’ to ‘what AI should do,’ moving beyond the hype to a clearer understanding of where AI can provide real value and where human judgment is still irreplaceable,” said Tara Hernandez, VP of Developer Productivity at MongoDB. “As we advance, I think we’ll see organizations begin to adopt more selective, careful applications of AI, particularly in areas where stakes are high, such as healthcare, finance, and public safety. A refined approach to AI development will be essential—not only for producing quality results but also to build trust, ensuring these tools genuinely support human goals rather than undermining them.” With more capable, accessible application development tools and customer-focused programs like MAAP at developers’ fingertips, 2025 is an opportunity to make a data-driven impact faster than ever before. "Right now, organizations have an opportunity to leverage their data to reimagine how they do business, to more effectively adapt to a changing world, and to revolutionize our quality of life,” said Andrew Davidson, SVP of Products at MongoDB. “By harnessing our latest technologies, developers can build a foundation for a transformative future." Head over to our updates page to learn more about the new releases and updates from MongoDB in 2024. Keep an eye on our events page to learn what's to come from MongoDB in 2025!

December 19, 2024