Reason #1 to Migrate to MongoDB Atlas: Built-in Automation

MongoDB Atlas is a cloud-based database that supports full-cloud deployments. Because of its robust platform and features, MongoDB Atlas helps users reduce their overhead and labor costs for IT management and administration. Many organizations find the benefits of this platform to be many.

 
In this blog post series, we’re going to cover the top five features of MongoDB Atlas that our customers have found to be most valuable. Our Reason #1 is Built-in Automation – more specifically, hardware provisioning, setup, and configuration; software patches and upgrades; and backups and disaster recovery.

Hardware Provisioning, Setup, and Configuration

Built-in automation is one of these features that makes Atlas appealing to companies, as it streamlines hardware provisioning, keeps system software up to date, and protects critical databases during disasters.

MongoDB Atlas has a user-friendly approach that makes this set of automation features easy to use and understand. You have fewer chances to have human error throw off parts of the provisioning, setup, and configuration process when most of it is automated through this service.

After you have everything up and running, you can horizontally scale through automated server provisioning. This feature allows you to quickly adapt to changing demands and unexpected business growth. You don’t have to make your teams wait for server provisioning that could take days or weeks. The opportunity cost of slow server setup can be immense in today’s business world, which values agility above many other characteristics.

Software Patches and Upgrades

Data breaches occur frequently in many industries, and post-attack audits often find that cybersecurity best practices were not followed. Software patches and upgrades can fall behind when the DBA team handles them manually. Hackers can take advantage of these environments to break into business networks, steal sensitive data, and disrupt your operation.

MongoDB Atlas removes this risk factor through automatic patching and one-click upgrades. You don’t even run into any downtime with these processes.

Backups and Disaster Recovery

You can’t protect your database from 100 percent of the potential disasters that it could face. While your disaster recovery plan may encompass the most common causes of lost data and systems failure, there are always unexpected situations that could occur outside of the scope of this planning process.

A robust backup system is necessary to minimize downtime after a disaster occurs. Unexpected downtime is incredibly expensive for many companies, through direct costs such as lost revenue and indirect costs such as a decrease in your reputation.

Some failures during backup and disaster recovery include forgetting to schedule backup systems, never testing the backups to see if they contain the right information, not diversifying the backup media and location, and insufficient training on the disaster recovery plan or backup system.

The sooner you restore operations, the better. You don’t want your IT team running around with backups that won’t restore properly, a lack of understanding on how to run the restore processes, or the sinking realization that no backups exist.

MongoDB Atlas automatically performs continuous backups with point-in-time recovery to speed up this process. This system gives you access to everything you need to restore access to vital systems and data. You can build your disaster recovery plan around having access to these resources during an emergency.

Final Thoughts

MongoDB Atlas offers many powerful automation features that can vastly improve your database experience. Your database administration team can spend more of their time on strategic decision making and proactive tasks, rather than getting mired down in repetitive and time-consuming processes. Learn more about how you can benefit from MongoDB Atlas by downloading our white paper, “5 Reasons to Migrate to MongoDB Atlas.”