Building for flexibility, visibility and scale

OUR SOLUTION

Migration as the starting point for transformation

Sentra’s move from Postgres to MongoDB was more than a database switch—it was a strategic rebuild to support scale and flexibility. The team took a phased approach, beginning with building the platform on MongoDB then developing a data layer and data service on top of it. “This made it more abstract, so all users internally would work through a single point,” adds Levine. Next, they integrated all platform components with this new data architecture, before migrating workloads step by step, moving data one customer at a time to ensure transparency and avoid disruption. The team worked with MongoDB experts for best practices on structure, queries, and indexing. Over four months, Sentra not only transitioned to MongoDB but also reshaped its architecture using the document model to deliver faster, more flexible searches—turning a technical challenge into a foundation for growth.

“We’re scaling up very, very fast,” says Levine. “How we build a platform that's efficient for our customers and for our own SaaS product is one of the most important things to deliver on our customer promise..”

Now, Sentra runs its platform on MongoDB Atlas, with every new customer onboarding directly into the cloud-native environment. MongoDB Atlas Search powers the filters, queries, and aggregations that enterprises rely on to surface and protect sensitive data. This allows Sentra to enable its customers across a breadth of industries to run complex, highly specific queries. “The whole system is using aggregation pipelines with the search index of MongoDB Atlas,” says Levine. “It makes the query super-fast, specifically for aggregations on counts because our customers want to know which sensitive data there is in very specific terms.”

Internally, Sentra uses MongoDB to maintain a single, reliable view of customer data across environments. Its flexible schema allows rapid support for new developments or attributes without downtime. This agility accelerates development and keeps the platform ahead of evolving customer needs and the fast-changing data security landscape.

May Bohadana, Technical Lead for Data, says “We haven’t experienced any scaling or latency issues with MongoDB—it’s been amazing for us.”

OUTCOME

A partnership powering innovation and global growth

For Sentra, the shift to MongoDB Atlas has delivered transformative results, enabling the company to build capabilities that set it apart in a crowded Data Security Posture Management market. Sentra rapidly introduced major features relying on MongoDB Atlas —including ‘super easy’ data aggregation and analysis every few minutes. In just a few months, Sentra massively multiplied the volume of data it manages, scaling from 20 million to over 1 billion assets while maintaining top speed and reliability. This leap allows customers to ingest, classify, and secure far greater volumes of sensitive data while continuing to receive fast, precise results.

Today, Sentra is among the largest users of MongoDB Atlas Search by volume. With guidance from MongoDB Professional Services, it optimized massive search indexes—shrinking them by 70% while dramatically boosting query speed. Queries that once took three minutes in Postgres now return in a second - a ∼180x faster -, vastly improving the customer experience.

Beyond technology, people remain central to Sentra’s success. Engineers collaborated closely with MongoDB teams on query optimization, disaster-recovery planning, and system scaling. That partnership has been as valuable as the platform itself—built on accessibility, responsiveness, and a shared commitment to innovation. “Sentra is scaling massively and how we partner with MongoDB to do things in the most efficient way is crucial,” says Levine. “The team is very approachable and always responds quickly. We’re in good hands.”

MongoDB is the cornerstone of Sentra’s fast global growth. To support its continued growth, the company is exploring advanced Atlas features in AI, search, and operational resilience. Its flexible foundation lets Sentra expand into new data types and platforms while maintaining industry-leading speed and control.

“Sentra’s migration to MongoDB was more than a technical upgrade, it was an important part of positioning the technology to consistently beat our competition by a wide margin on accuracy, speed, and efficiency at petabyte scale,” says Bohadana.