Too often the increased efficiencies and performance improvements promised by new data technologies seem to vanish into thin air when the systems hit the production floor. Not so for these three companies that implemented MongoDB databases in very different environments, but realized very similar benefits: faster app speeds and lower overall system costs.
A hedge fund reduced its software licensing costs by a factor of 40, and its data storage by 40 percent. In addition, its quantitative analysts’ modeling is now 25 times faster.
A retailer has installed in-store touch screens that give its customers an enjoyable, interactive shopping experience. The company can create and modify its online catalogs in just minutes to keep pace with ever-changing fashion trends.
A firm that provides affiliate-marketing and partner-management services for enterprises was able to expand without incurring the added expenses for hardware and services it anticipated. The company’s customers realized improved performance because the new system’s compression and other storage enhancements allowed more of their report requests to be processed in RAM.
All three of these success stories were made possible by converting the companies’ traditional databases to MongoDB.
Hedge fund adopts a self-service model for financial analyses
In the past, whenever British hedge fund AHL Man Group wanted to add any new data sources, it became a long, drawn-out process that piled onto the IT department’s busy workload. As ComputerWeekly’s Brian McKenna reports in a January 21, 2015, article, AHL decided to standardize on Python in 2012, and subsequently discovered that Python interfaced very smoothly with its MongoDB databases.
By the end of 2013 the company had completed a proof-of-concept project, after which it was able to finalize its transition to MongoDB by the end of May 2014, at which time its legacy-system licenses expired. The result was a 40-fold decrease in licensing costs, and a 40 percent reduction in disk-storage requirements. In addition, the switch to a self-service model has allowed some of the firm’s analysts to perform their “quant” modeling up to 25 times faster than previously.
Retailer’s in-store tablets keep pace with fashion trends
Another January 21, 2015, article on the Apparel site recounts how retailer Chico’s FAS developed a MongoDB-based application for its in-store touch-screen Tech Tablets that customers use as virtual catalogs. In addition to highlighting Chico’s latest styles, the tablets show product videos and testimonials. The key benefit of the MongoDB application is the ability to create and adapt catalogs in minutes rather than the weeks required previously.
It took Chico’s only five months to develop and implement the MongoDB-based app, which easily scaled to meet the retailer’s increased demand in the holiday shopping season. More importantly, the app created an interactive, personalized shopping experience that’s sure to bring its customers back for more.
MongoDB distro lets expanding marketer avoid high hardware costs
As a company grows, its data networks have to grow along with it, which often increases cost and complexity exponentially. Affiliate-marketing and partner-management firm Performance Horizon Group (PHG) faced skyrocketing hardware expenses as it grew its operations supporting enterprise clients in more than 150 countries.
By implementing Tokutek’s TokuMX distribution of MongoDB, PHG reduced its need for new servers by a factor of eight, according to PHG CTO Pete Cheyne. In addition, each of the new servers required only half the RAM of its existing machines while accommodating a growing number of data sets. PHG’s implementation of TokuMX is described in a December 2, 2014, Tokutek press release.
Any organization can improve the efficiency of its database-management operations by adopting the new Morpheus Virtual Appliance, which lets you manage heterogeneous MySQL, MongoDB, Redis, and ElasticSearch databases in a single dashboard. Morpheus is the first and only database-as-a-service (DBaaS) that supports SQL, NoSQL, and in-memory databases across public, private, and hybrid clouds.
With Morpheus, you can invoke a new database instance with one click, and each instance includes a free full replica set for failover and fault tolerance. You can administer your databases using your choice of tools. Visit the Morpheus site to create a free account.
