At an event in New York City, NoSQL database technology provider MongoDB showcased leading use cases for its technology and introduced a new MongoDB University app for iOS, allowing data professionals to train on-the-go.
Expanding Use Cases
Urban Outfitters, Inc., a lifestyle specialty retail company which includes the Anthropologie, BHLDN, Free People, Terrain, and Urban Outfitters brands, has selected MongoDB to reinvent its e-commerce platform to do a better job of connecting with customers online and through social media. According to Kelly Stirman, vice president of strategy and product marketing at MongoDB, Urban Outfitters felt it was limited by the traditional software stack it had been using. By building a new platform providing capabilities and services for all channels and all brands leveraging MongoDB, the retailer can now quickly design and release innovative apps, while delivering a rich, consistent customer experience.
MongoDB is a key component in Urban Outfitters’ omnichannel strategy enabling the retailer to move ahead across a variety of initiatives including in-store pickup and personalization to build a seamless customer experience.
Sprinklr, a software company that helps large brands engage more effectively over social media, is another MarkLogic customer that is being showcased.
ShopStage, a new venture that is being spun out of an ad firm called The Science Project, has built a platform for retailers to do a better job of connecting with customers across all digital channels and upselling and cross-selling their products either online or in stores, has built a platform built on MongoDB.
IBM is also making MongoDB an important part of its strategy around open source software. The company is now supporting MongoDB on the mainframe, and views MongoDB as important to their business and to customers, said Stirman.
Upcoming Features in MongoDB 3.2
MongoDB is planning to ship its newest release, MongoDB 3.2 , before the end of the year. As previously announced at MongoDB World in June, the new release will include four key new capabilities.
First, with the new release, MongoDB will be opened up to standard BI and visualization tools like Tableau, QlikTech, Spotfire, Business Objects, and Cognos. These tools are installed on millions of desktops and now will be able to leverage a connector for BI that can be used that does the translation between the queries that these tools generate and the data that MongoDB contains.
Second, a new tool for DBAs and developers will allow them to understand the structure and nature of the data that they have in MongoDB. The tool code-named ‘Mong DB Scout,’ samples the data from a database and lets users visualize it, write queries and understand the fields that exist across all the data, providing insight into the data so it can be managed more effectively.
A third new feature in the upcoming release is a new in-memory storage engine. MongoDB traditionally has not been an in-memory product but in 3.2 there will be a new option to have MongoDB run purely in-memory to support use cases that require low latency and high performance in areas such as financial services, Ad-Tech, and fraud detection.
And fourth, the new release will now permit customers to enforce rules about the data. Document validation will allow customers to define rules around the data to enforce data governance and data quality. Customers will be able to, for example, require that customer data have a value for the phone number or the email address, or that an email address follow a prescribed pattern, and without including that information or pattern, an error message will be generated.
MongoDB University App for iOS
MongoDB is making available a new MongoDB University app for iOS to enable professionals to take the company’s popular online classes on the go. Available for free in the App Store for iPhone and iPad, the app allows students to stream course videos, complete quizzes, and prepare for MongoDB certification exams. The MongoDB University iOS app also offers the ability to download course videos for offline viewing on the subway or in other environments where bandwidth is limited.
“MongoDB University has been an incredible success for us. Over 300,000 students have registered for those classes,” said Stirman. “One of the things we have realized over the last couple of years in working with students is that there is a lot of demand for greater flexibility as far as when they could complete the coursework.”
These classes are largely attended by professionals who have existing jobs and are looking to improve their own skillsets and capabilities. As a result, they need to squeeze the coursework in when they are commuting to work in the morning and evening and are not always connected to the internet. In addition, many of the participants are also in areas of the world that don’t have pervasive internet connectivity.
To get around these limitations, said Stirman, the application has been architected to minimize the dependency on internet connectivity, where content is stored locally on the device and it is possible to do a lot of the coursework completely disconnected from the internet
For more information, visit www.mongodb.com.