What are the options for MongoDB schema migrations/upgrades?
We (my colleagues and I) have a somewhat large (~100 million record) MongoDB collection. This collection is mapped (ORM'd) to a Scala lift-mongodb object that has been through a number of different iterations. We've got all sorts of code in there which handles missing fields, renames, removals, migrations, etc.
As much as the whole "schema-less" thing can be nice and flexible, in this case it's causing a lot of code clutter as our object continues to evolve. Continuing down this "flexible object" path is simply not sustainable.
How have you guys implemented schema migrations/upgrades in MongoDB with Scala? Does a framework for this exist? I know that Foursquare uses Scala with MongoDB and Rogue (their own query DSL)... does anyone know how they handle their migrations?
Thank you.
Perhaps this can help somewhat, this is how Guardian.co.uk handle this:
http://qconlondon.com/dl/qcon-london-2011/slides/MatthewWall_WhyIChoseMongoDBForGuardianCoUk.pdf
Schema upgrades
This can be mitigated by:
Adding a “version” key to each document
Updating the version each time the application modifies a document
Using MapReduce capability to forcibly migrate documents from older versions if required
I program migrations of MongoDB data with my own Scala framework "Subset". It lets define document fields pretty easily, fine tune data serialization (e.g. write "date" is a specific format and so on) and build queries and update modifiers in terms of the defined fields. This "gist" gives a good introduction
Related
I am experimenting a lot these days, and one of the things I wanted to do is combine two popular NoSQL databases, namely Neo4j and MongoDB. Simply because I feel they complement eachother perfectly. The first class citizens in Neo4j, the relations, are imo exactly what's missing in MongoDB, whereas MongoDb allows me to not put large amounts of data in my node properties.
So I am trying to combine the two in a Java application, using the Neo4j Java REST binding, and the MongoDB Java driver. All my domain entities have a unique identifier which I store in both databases. The other data is stored in MongoDB and the relations between entities are stored in Neo4J. For instance, both databases contain a userid, MongoDB contains the profile information, and Neo4J contains friendship relations. With the custom data access layer I have written, this works exactly like I want it to. And it's fast.
BUT... When I want to create a user, I need to create both a node in Neo4j and a document in MongoDB. Not necessarily a problem, except that Neo4j is transactional and MongoDB is not. If both were transactional, I would just roll back both transactions when one of them fails. But since MongoDB isn't transactional, I cannot do this.
How do I ensure that whenever I create a user, either both a Node and Document are created, or none of both. I don't want to end up with a bunch of documents that have no matching node.
On top of that, not only do I want my combined database interaction to be ACID compliant, I also want it to be threadsafe. Both the GraphDatabaseService and the MongoClient / DB are provided from singletons.
I found something about creating "Transaction Documents" in MongoDB, but I realy don't like that approach. I would like something nice and clean like the neo4j beginTx, tx.success, tx.failure, tx.finish setup. Ideally, something I can implement in the same try/catch/finally block.
Should I perhaps make a switch to CouchDB, which does appear to be transactional?
Edit : After some more research, sparked by a comment, I came to realize that CouchDB is also not suitable for my specific needs. To clarify, the Neo4j part is set in stone. The Document Store database is not as long as it has a Java Library.
Pieter-Jan,
if you are able to use Neo4j 2.0 you can implement a Schema-Index-Provider (which is really easy) that creates your documents transactionally in MongoDB.
As Neo4j makes its index providers transactional (since the beginning), we did that with Lucene and there is one for Redis too (needs to be updated). But it is much easier with Neo4j 2.0, if you want to you can check out my implementation for MapDB. (https://github.com/jexp/neo4j-mapdb-index)
Although I'm a huge fan of both technologies, I think a better option for you could be OrientDB. It's a graph (as Neo4) and document (as MongoDB) database in one and supports ACID transactions. Sounds like a perfect match for your needs.
As posted here https://stackoverflow.com/questions/23465663/what-is-the-best-practice-to-combine-neo4j-and-mongodb?lq=1, you might have a look on Structr.
Its backend can be regarded as a Document database around Neo4j. It's fully transactional and open-source.
In a system I'm building, it's essentially an issue tracking system, but with various issue templates. Some issue types will have different formats that others.
I was originally planning on using MySQL with a main issues table and an issues_meta table that contains key => value pairs. However, I'm thinking NoSQL (MongoDB) might be the better option.
Can MongoDB provide me with the ability to generate "standard"
reports, like # of issues by type, # of issues by type by month, # of
issues assigned per person, etc? I ask this because I've read a few
sources that said Mongo was bad at reporting.
I'm also planning on storing my audit logs in Mongo, since I want a single "table" for all actions (Modifications to any table). In Mongo I can store each field that was changed easily, since it is schemaless. Is this a bad idea?
Anything else I should know, and will Mongo work for what I want?
I think MongoDB will be a perfect match for that use case.
MongoDB collections are heterogeneous, meaning you can store documents with different fields in the same bag. So different reporting templates won't be a show stopper. You will be able to model a full issue with a single document.
MongoDB would be a good fit for logging too. You may be interested in capped collections.
Should you need to have relational association between documents, you can do have it too.
If you are using Ruby, I can recommend you Mongoid. It will make it easier. Also, it has support for versioning of documents.
MongoDB will definitely work (and you can use capped collections to automatically drop old records, if you want), but you should ask yourself, does it fit to this task well? For use case you've described it is better option to use Redis (simple and fast enough) or Riak (if you care a lot about your log data).
I just installed mongodb from Synaptic (Using ubuntu 11.10).
I'm following this tutorial: http://howtonode.org/express-mongodb
to build a simple blog using node.js, express.js and mongodb.
I reached the part where you can actually store post in the mongodb.
It worked for me but I'm not sure how. I didn't even start the mongodb (just installed it).
The second thing that has me puzzled is: where is that data going?
Does anyone have any clue?
EDIT:
I think I found where is the data going:
var/lib/
Where are some files that are apparently written in binary code.
MongoDB stores all your data as BSON within the directory you found. The internal Mongo processes handle the sharding of the data when necessary following your specific setup, accomodating you if you have setup distribution across several servers.
One of the most confusing things about coming over to Mongo from RDBMS is the nature of collections vs tables.
http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/MongoDB%2C+CouchDB%2C+MySQL+Compare+Grid
Of Note: A Mongo collection does not need to have any schema designed, it is assumed that the client application will validate and enforce any particular scheme. The way the data comes in and is serialized is the way it will be saved in its BSON representation. It is entirely possible to have missing keys and and totally different docs in the same collection, which is why robust data checking in your app becomes so important.
Mongo collections also do not need to be saved. There isn't anything that approximates the CREATE TABLE syntax from MySQL, since there's no schema there isn't much such a command would have to describe. Your collection will be created with the first document inserted, and every document inserted will be given a unique hashed '_id' key (assuming you don't define this key in your objects using your own methodology.'
Here's a helpful resource with the basic commands.
http://cheat.errtheblog.com/s/mongo
Mongo, and NoSQL in general, is a developer lead movement trying to bridge the gap between the object-oriented application layer and the persistency layer in an app, which would traditionally have been represented by an RDBMS. Developers just would much rather work within one paradigm, and OOP has become predominant especially in the web environment.
If you're coming over from LAMP and used PhpMyAdmin in the past, I really must suggest RockMongo. This tool makes it so much easier to observe and understand the actual structure of the BSON documents stored in your server.
http://code.google.com/p/rock-php/wiki/rock_mongo
Best of luck!
When it comes to NoSQL, there are bewildering number of choices to select a specific NoSQL database as is clear in the NoSQL wiki.
In my application I want to replace mysql with NOSQL alternative. In my application I have user table which has one to many relation with large number of other tables. Some of these tables are in turn related to yet other tables. Also I have a user connected to another user if they are friends.
I do not have documents to store, so this eliminates document oriented NoSQL databases.
I want very high performance.
The NOSQL database should work very well with Play Framework and scala language.
It should be open source and free.
So given above, what NoSQL database I should use?
I think you may be misunderstanding the nature of "document databases". As such, I would recommend MongoDB, which is a document database, but I think you'll like it.
MongoDB stores "documents" which are basically JSON records. The cool part is it understands the internals of the documents it stores. So given a document like this:
{
"name": "Gregg",
"fave-lang": "Scala",
"fave-colors": ["red", "blue"]
}
You can query on "fave-lang" or "fave-colors". You can even index on either of those fields, even the array "fave-colors", which would necessitate a many-to-many in relational land.
Play offers a MongoDB plugin which I have not used. You can also use the Casbah driver for MongoDB, which I have used a great deal and is excellent. The Rogue query DSL for MongoDB, written by FourSquare is also worth looking at if you like MongoDB.
MongoDB is extremely fast. In addition you will save yourself the hassle of writing schemas because any record can have any fields you want, and they are still searchable and indexable. Your data model will probably look much like it does now, with a users "collection" (like a table) and other collections with records referencing a user ID as needed. But if you need to add a field to one of your collections, you can do so at any time without worrying about the older records or data migration. There is technically no schema to MongoDB records, but you do end up organizing similar records into collections.
MongoDB is one of the most fun technologies I have happened to come across in the past few years. In that one happy Saturday I decided to check it out and within 15 minutes was productive and felt like I "got it". I routinely give a demo at work where I show people how to get started with MongoDB and Scala in 15 minutes and that includes installing MongoDB. Shameless plug if you're into web services, here's my blog post on getting started with MongoDB and Scalatra using Casbah: http://janxspirit.blogspot.com/2011/01/quick-webb-app-with-scala-mongodb.html
You should at the very least go to http://try.mongodb.org
That's what got me started.
Good luck!
At this point the answer is none, I'm afraid.
You can't just convert your relational model with joins to a key-value store design and expect it to be a 1:1 mapping. From what you said it seems that you do have joins, some of them recursive, i.e. referencing another row from the same table.
You might start by denormalizing your existing relational schema to move it closer to a design you wish to achieve. Then, you could see more easily if what you are trying to do can be done in a practical way, and which technology to choose. You may even choose to continue using MySQL. Just because you can have joins doesn't mean that you have to, which makes it possible to have a non-relational design in a relational DBMS like MySQL.
Also, keep in mind - non-relational databases were designed for scalability - not performance! If you don't have thousands of users and a server farm a traditional relational database may actually work better for you.
Hmm, You want very high performance of traversal and you use the word "friends". The first thing that comes to mind is Graph Databases. They are specifically made for this exact case.
Try Neo4j http://neo4j.org/
It's is free, open source, but also has commercial support and commercial licensing, has excellent documentation and can be accessed from many languages (REST interface).
It is written in java, so you have native libraries or you can embedd it into your java/scala app.
Regarding MongoDB or Cassendra, you now (Dec. 2016, 5 years late) try longevityframework.org.
Build your domain model using standard Scala idioms such as case classes, companion objects, options, and immutable collections. Tell us about the types in your model, and we provide the persistence.
See "More Longevity Awesomeness with Macro Annotations! " from John Sullivan.
He provides an example on GitHub.
If you've looked at longevity before, you will be amazed at how easy it has become to start persisting your domain objects. And the best part is that everything persistence related is tucked away in the annotations. Your domain classes are completely free of persistence concerns, expressing your domain model perfectly, and ready for use in all portions of your application.
I'm used to using relational databases like MySQL or PostgreSQL, and combined with MVC frameworks such as Symfony, RoR or Django, and I think it works great.
But lately I've heard a lot about MongoDB which is a non-relational database, or, to quote the official definition,
a scalable, high-performance, open
source, schema-free, document-oriented
database.
I'm really interested in being on edge and want to be aware of all the options I'll have for a next project and choose the best technologies out there.
In which cases using MongoDB (or similar databases) is better than using a "classic" relational databases?
And what are the advantages of MongoDB vs MySQL in general?
Or at least, why is it so different?
If you have pointers to documentation and/or examples, it would be of great help too.
Here are some of the advantages of MongoDB for building web applications:
A document-based data model. The basic unit of storage is analogous to JSON, Python dictionaries, Ruby hashes, etc. This is a rich data structure capable of holding arrays and other documents. This means you can often represent in a single entity a construct that would require several tables to properly represent in a relational db. This is especially useful if your data is immutable.
Deep query-ability. MongoDB supports dynamic queries on documents using a document-based query language that's nearly as powerful as SQL.
No schema migrations. Since MongoDB is schema-free, your code defines your schema.
A clear path to horizontal scalability.
You'll need to read more about it and play with it to get a better idea. Here's an online demo:
http://try.mongodb.org/
There are numerous advantages.
For instance your database schema will be more scalable, you won't have to worry about migrations, the code will be more pleasant to write... For instance here's one of my model's code :
class Setting
include MongoMapper::Document
key :news_search, String, :required => true
key :is_availaible_for_iphone, :required => true, :default => false
belongs_to :movie
end
Adding a key is just adding a line of code !
There are also other advantages that will appear in the long run, like a better scallability and speed.
... But keep in mind that a non-relational database is not better than a relational one. If your database has a lot of relations and normalization, it might make little sense to use something like MongoDB. It's all about finding the right tool for the job.
For more things to read I'd recommend taking a look at "Why I think Mongo is to Databases what Rails was to Frameworks" or this post on the mongodb website. To get excited and if you speak french, take a look at this article explaining how to set up MongoDB from scratch.
Edit: I almost forgot to tell you about this railscast by Ryan. It's very interesting and makes you want to start right away!
The advantage of schema-free is that you can dump whatever your load is in it, and no one will ever have any ground for complaining about it, or for saying that it was wrong.
It also means that whatever you dump in it, remains totally void of meaning after you have done so.
Some would label that a gross disadvantage, some others won't.
The fact that a relational database has a well-established schema, is a consequence of the fact that it has a well-established set of extensional predicates, which are what allows us to attach meaning to what is recorded in the database, and which are also a necessary prerequisite for us to do so.
Without a well-established schema, no extensional predicates, and without extensional precicates, no way for the user to make any meaning out of what was stuffed in it.
My experience with Postgres and Mongo after working with both the databases in my projects .
Postgres(RDBMS)
Postgres is recommended if your future applications have a complicated schema that needs lots of joins or all the data have relations or if we have heavy writing. Postgres is open source, faster, ACID compliant and uses less memory on disk, and is all around good performant for JSON storage also and includes full serializability of transactions with 3 levels of transaction isolation.
The biggest advantage of staying with Postgres is that we have best of both worlds. We can store data into JSONB with constraints, consistency and speed. On the other hand, we can use all SQL features for other types of data. The underlying engine is very stable and copes well with a good range of data volumes. It also runs on your choice of hardware and operating system. Postgres providing NoSQL capabilities along with full transaction support, storing JSON documents with constraints on the fields data.
General Constraints for Postgres
Scaling Postgres Horizontally is significantly harder, but doable.
Fast read operations cannot be fully achieved with Postgres.
NO SQL Data Bases
Mongo DB (Wired Tiger)
MongoDB may beat Postgres in dimension of “horizontal scale”. Storing JSON is what Mongo is optimized to do. Mongo stores its data in a binary format called BSONb which is (roughly) just a binary representation of a superset of JSON. MongoDB stores objects exactly as they were designed. According to MongoDB, for write-intensive applications, Mongo says the new engine(Wired Tiger) gives users an up to 10x increase in write performance(I should try this), with 80 percent reduction in storage utilization, helping to lower costs of storage, achieve greater utilization of hardware.
General Constraints of MongoDb
The usage of a schema less storage engine leads to the problem of implicit schemas. These schemas aren’t defined by our storage engine but instead are defined based on application behavior and expectations.
Stand-alone NoSQL technologies do not meet ACID standards because they sacrifice critical data protections in favor of high throughput performance for unstructured applications. It’s not hard to apply ACID on NoSQL databases but it would make database slow and inflexible up to some extent. “Most of the NoSQL limitations were optimized in the newer versions and releases which have overcome its previous limitations up to a great extent”.
It's all about trade offs. MongoDB is fast but not ACID, it has no transactions. It is better than MySQL in some use cases and worse in others.
Bellow Lines Written in MongoDB: The Definitive Guide.
There are several good reasons:
Keeping different kinds of documents in the same collection can be a
nightmare for developers and admins. Developers need to make sure
that each query is only returning documents of a certain kind or
that the application code performing a query can handle documents of
different shapes. If we’re querying for blog posts, it’s a hassle to
weed out documents containing author data.
It is much faster to get a list of collections than to extract a
list of the types in a collection. For example, if we had a type key
in the collection that said whether each document was a “skim,”
“whole,” or “chunky monkey” document, it would be much slower to
find those three values in a single collection than to have three
separate collections and query for their names
Grouping documents of the same kind together in the same collection
allows for data locality. Getting several blog posts from a
collection containing only posts will likely require fewer disk
seeks than getting the same posts from a collection con- taining
posts and author data.
We begin to impose some structure on our documents when we create
indexes. (This is especially true in the case of unique indexes.)
These indexes are defined per collection. By putting only documents
of a single type into the same collection, we can index our
collections more efficiently
After a question of databases with textual storage), I glanced at MongoDB and similar systems.
If I understood correctly, they are supposed to be easier to use and setup, and much faster. Perhaps also more secure as the lack of SQL prevents SQL injection...
Apparently, MongoDB is used mostly for Web applications.
Basically, and they state that themselves, these databases aren't suited for complex queries, data-mining, etc. But they shine at retrieving quickly lot of flat data.
MongoDB supports search by fields, regular expression searches.Includes user defined java script functions.
MongoDB can be used as a file system, taking advantage of load balancing and data replication features over multiple machines for storing files.