MongoDB In The Brew City

Change is the one constant!

When I started this blog a few months ago, my intention had been to be (yet another) primarily Oracle focused blog.  But as I had described in my previous post regarding my new found Mongo-curiosity, I had become very interested in MongoDB, a non-relational database that seems to be exploding in popularity.

Why?  I think the best answer to that that I have read to this point was posted on MongoLab's blog.

"Why is MongoDB wildly popular? It’s a data structure thing."

For the past couple of months, I've been immersing myself in all things MongoDB - webinars, tutorials, eBooks... And I must say, I really like this technology.  And I find myself chomping at the bit to learn everything I can, and then some, about the deployment and administration of MongoDB databases - possibly even picking up a little development knowledge along the way.  The challenge lies in that I've been unable to develop a use case for it at work that will allow me to develop the knowledge and skills I'd like to have.

So I formed a user group!  BrewMUG - Milwaukee's MongoDB User Group

With BrewMUG, I hope to create a community of MongoDB developers and DBA's to

• foster interest in MongoDB in a social atmosphere
• provide a forum for learning the in and outs of working with MongoDB
• network with other professionals interested in deploying MongoDB
• enjoy pizza and drinks with IT geeks ;)

Whether you've never touched MongoDB or you've deployed it in production and you're located in southeastern Wisconsin, please join our Meetup.com group!  We are also active on Google+ and post to Twitter with updates and important FYI's.

We hope to see you at the inaugural meetup!

Mongo-curious

Hi.  My name is John... and I'm Mongo-curious.

I think it's safe to say that you can't possibly be involved in databases today and not have heard the terms Big Data and NoSQL, usually in the same conversation.  Coming from a relational database background, as I expect most of us are, I've found the idea of non-relational databases intriguing to say the very least.  And I've been trying to become more familiar with the concepts involved.

The problem, as you may be well aware, is that there are no universal definitions as to what NoSQL is nor what Big Data means.

As I mentioned on Google+ today, I was reading an article on GigaOM entitled "MongoDB or MySQL?  Why Not Both?"  And that prompted me to spend a little time looking into MongoDB (which I've been curious about if for no other reason that the name is cool and I've heard it works well with Python).  Which brings me to the reason for this post...

I came across a free eBook — "The Little MongoDB Book" — that is an outstanding, brief introduction to MongoDB, by Karl Seguin.  I read it (in iBooks on my iPad) in less than an evening!  The chapter on MapReduce alone made the time spent worthwhile!

I'm looking forward to diving into the examples provided in the book over the weekend.  But I'd like to thank Karl for providing such an excellent and free resource to us all!