4 ms·

Is MongoDB's distribution and scaling story really nicer? A cluster story that's easy to set up but then doesn't actually work (loses data, fails in potentially

• jpgvm 12y ago
  MongoDB clustering is nothing short of disastrous. If anything I hope databases like RethinkDB and even multi-master PostgreSQL if we ever see it learn from the most crucial mistake here - rolling your own consensus. (This goes for databases other than MongoDB, I don't meant to single it out here) Stick to proven algoritms, ZAB, Paxos, Raft.
• craigching 12y ago
  It depends on your workload, but MongoDB has worked extremely well for us, we've never lost data. I love aphyr's posts on databases, but you can't use them as a blanket for everything.
  • nemothekid 12y ago
    Just because you haven't had a failure yet, it doesn't make the test any less true.
    • craigching 12y ago
      Three years? Numerous customers? That's good enough for me so far.
      • Nitramp 12y ago
        Have you actually tested a net split situation, or a crash, or what it'd take to recover?
        • craigching 12y ago
          Yep, sure have. And you still need backups of your data, that's just good sense.
          • craigching 12y ago
            Nitramp, I'm sorry you disagree with my experience. But instead of downvoting, why don't you contribute to the conversation with your own experience? At least my experience is taken from the real world and not from something I read on the internet.
      • nemothekid 12y ago
        C'mon you know that isn't fair reasoning, you could say the same about running backups. Just because someone hasn't seen the need for backups for three years after numerous customers doesn't mean thats a good enough reason to not keep backups. I'm not saying you shouldn't use Mongo, but to say Aphyr's assessment of database shouldn't be considered in all deployments isn't wise.
        • craigching 12y ago
          I'm not saying Aphyr's work isn't useful, it's the right tool for the job. For our needs and uses, it's been spectacular. I want to use Postgres, but it's HA isn't something I'm willing to expose to my customers. So I'm actually using MongoDB in anger ... and it's doing spectacular. So let me leave off with our use case. We have few writes, little need for sharding (our largest customers run on a single node and keep the hot data in memory), we use acknowledged writes (MongoDB can be journaled you know), and our customers are willing to have three + nodes in an HA scenario. The HA is simple to configure. So far in three years we have no data loss. What more information can I provide to make up for the downvotes? As an aside, downvotes to me should be used for those that contribute nothing to a conversation. If you disagree with what someone says, state your disagreement so that we all, including me, can benefit from your better experience.
      • craigching 12y ago
        Ok, granted, my experience is an anecdote, but downvoting me without disputing what I'm saying? Pure cowardice. At least counter with your own anecdote, don't downvote. Or let me know why I'm being downvoted, simply disagreeing shouldn't result in a downvote, that just kills the conversation.
• chaostheory 12y ago
  Mongodb is easy to setup as a single instance, but it is definitely no easier to setup for horizontal scaling compared to alternatives. I'm still not aware of anything that's both simple to setup and maintain for horizontal scaling in practice (not theory).
  • pas 12y ago
    Cassandra is, but you're forced into a very simplistic data (sharding) model. (And probably Riak is too, but haven't used it.)
    • chaostheory 12y ago
      Cassandra is easier to scale than mongo, and yeah Riak is even easier, but they're still not easy unless you don't care as much about consistency and you can wait, and if your app is more about writes than reads.