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MongoLab

for Mobile Developers

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Peter Traeg - March 24, 2012

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Cloud based database solution

  • Based on MongoDB
  • REST based interface database interaction
  • Free 250MB database accounts
  • Good for simple apps where you don't want to write a lot of server side code.
  • http://www.mongolab.com

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MongoDB - What is it?

  • Powerful "No SQL" database
  • Used for very large databases:
    • Foursquare
    • Shutterfly
    • Craigslist
    • Intuit
    • Forbes
  • Based on storing JSON documents

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Terminology

Databases

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Collections

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Documents

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MongoLab - REST interface

Simple REST interface for CRUD operations:

  • Create (HTTP POST)
  • Read (HTTP GET)
  • Update (HTTP PUT)
  • Delete (HTTP DELETE)

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Security is limited to your API key

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Sample JSON data

[

{

"id":"ABC12",

"fname":"Peter",

"lname":"Johnson",

"email":"pete@acme.com",

"state":"NY"

},

{

"id":"ABC13",

"fname":"Mary",

"lname":"Jones",

"email":"mary@apple.com",

"state":"CA"

}

]

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REST API Examples

View All Databases:

https://api.mongolab.com/api/1/databases/?apiKey=xxxx

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View Collections in a Database:

https://api.mongolab.com/api/1/databases/approchester/collections?apiKey=xxxxx

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REST API Examples

View All Documents in a Collection:

https://api.mongolab.com/api/1/databases/approchester/collections/customers?apiKey=xxxx

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Query a collection for documents:

https://api.mongolab.com/api/1/databases/approchester/collections/customers?apiKey=xxxx&q={state:%20%22NY%22}

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REST API Examples

Sort, and restrict the results to specific fields:

https://api.mongolab.com/api/1/databases/approchester/collections/customers?apiKey=xxxx&f={fname:1, lname:1, _id:0}&s={lname:1}

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MongoDB Features

Geolocation searches - used by Foursquare

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Indexes on attributes of a document

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Ability to aggregate documents

  • Aggregation Framework
  • Map / Reduce

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Queries can span documents across collections

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Issues with the REST based API

Limited security

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Shared API key across databases

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REST API is specific to MongoLab

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Not all Mongo features are exposed.

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Resources

mongolab.com

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mongohq.com

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10gen.com - creators of MongoDB

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The End