451 Market Insight Service 18 JAN 2011

Copyright 2010-11 The 451 Group Page 1 of 3

Analyst: Matt Aslett

J0gen was one oí the earliest oí the emerging NoSOL group oí non-relational database
pro·iders and has recentlv seen rapid adoption oí its MongoDB open source document
database. It also brought in a new íunding round. including new in·estor Sequoia Capital.

1he 45J 1ake
\e stated last vear that we would like to see 10gen íocusing a little more on paving
customers. \e are ·erv impressed. thereíore. to see rapid growth in the companv's customer
roster. while e·en greater communitv adoptions suggests there are signiíicant opportunities
íor the companv to grow e·en íaster. \e think the companv will ha·e to in·est in growing
its own resources to meet those opportunities. but its recent íunding round means that it has
the means to do so at its disposal.
Context
\e obser·ed during 2010 that there is signiíicant interest in emerging non-relational
database technologies. commonlv grouped together under the term NoSOL. but as with anv
new technologv area. it has not been easv to identiív how much oí that is dri·en bv
technological experimentation and how much bv serious enterprise-le·el adoption. It would
appear írom our latest update with open source document database pro·ider 10gen that
there are healthv le·els oí both.
1he companv told us in August that it was in·ol·ed with 100 companies that were in
production with MongoDB. although onlv an unspeciíied proportion oí those were paving
customers. 1he companv now claims to ha·e about 200 paving customers and savs it is
aware oí at least 1.000 deplovments oí MongoDB. dri·en bv 100.000 downloads a month.
So. it's little wonder that the companv was able to attract a >6.5m third round oí íunding in
December. led bv Sequoia (apital. Also in·ol·ed were Union Square Ventures. which
pro·ided the companv's >1.5m series A round in Julv 2008. as well as Ilybridge Capital
Partners. which joined Union Square in the >3.4m series B round in No·ember 2009. 1he
companv has also increased its headcount írom 20 in August to 25 todav. It had planned to
grow to 30 people bv the end oí 2010.
10een clalms rapld erewth fer decument database,
plans clesed seurce add-ens
18 January 2011 - lMPAC1 R£PUR1
451 Market Insight Service 18 JAN 2011
Copyright 2010-11 The 451 Group Page 2 of 3

1echnology and services
10gen is working on ad·ancements to the MongoDB database to ensure that it continues to
con·ert de·eloper-le·el adoption into paid production en·ironments. Version 1.8 oí
MongoDB is due at the end oí the month. It builds on the scalabilitv enhancement deli·ered
in ·ersion 1.6 with single-ser·er durabilitv. sharding impro·ements and co·ered indexes.
10gen currentlv oííers support subscriptions íor the open source Aííero General Public
License, MongoDB. as well as consulting. training and - ií requested - the same soítware
under a closed source license.
Strategy
1he companv will adopt what has become known as an open-core model in the second
quarter bv adding closed source add-ons to its subscription oííering. most likelv including
enterprise-le·el capabilities such as SNMP adapters and SSL encrvption. 10gen maintains
that more general-purpose capabilities will continue to be added to the open source ·ersion
- íull text search. online compaction. íine-grained concurrencv and impro·ed aggregation
are on the roadmap.
Customers
Scalabilitv a classic use case íor NoSOL but not actuallv applicable to all products, is the
main dri·er íor MongoDB adoption. as well as speed in the case oí single-ser·er
deplovments. and agile de·elopment. all oí which beneíit írom the product's schema-íree
data-storage approach. 10gen maintains that MongoDB could be used íor almost anv
operational workload. apart írom those that require complex transactions and high ·olumes
oí ad hoc queries although it does support atomic operations at the le·el oí a single
document and can be used íor real-time analvtics oí precomputed queries,.
Larlv adoption centered around \eb applications with large ·olumes and read´write
requirements. although enterprise-grade deplovments include document and content
management and pro·ision oí a persistent. scalable caching laver íor a relational database
back end. Lxample customers include Intuit. which is using MongoDB íor real-time
analvtics to track user acti·itv across its ·arious websites íor small businesses: Craigslist.
which is migrating its archi·e oí posts to MongoDB: Shutterfly. which uses it to store photo
metadata: IourSquare. which makes use oí MongoDB's geospatial indexing to store user.
·enue and location data: and online media pro·ider IGN Lntertainment. which uses
MongoDB íor real-time traííic analvtics and storing ·ideo metadata. among other things.
Competition
1he most ob·ious competition íor 10gen would ostensiblv be CouchOne. which is based
on the open source document database Apache (ouchDB. lowe·er (ouchOne is íocused
on mobile deplovments oí (ouchDB. making the most oí its peer-based bidirectional
replication. and we would agree with 10gen that it is unlikelv to come up against (ouchOne's
mobile de·elopment en·ironment. A more likelv competitor is Apache (assandra column
451 Market Insight Service 18 JAN 2011
Copyright 2010-11 The 451 Group Page 3 of 3

íamilv data store. supported bv Riptano. in that it is being adopted as a general-purpose
ser·er-side data store.
Other NoSOL technologies include the kev ·alue stores such as Membase's Membase
Ser·er. Basho 1echnologies' Riak and the Redis and Voldemort projects: column íamilv
data stores. including Apache lBase and lvpertable: and graph databases such as Neo
1echnology's Neo4J. sones GraphDB and Objectivity Inc's IníiniteGraph. lowe·er.
gi·en their widespread adoption. the most likelv alternati·es íor production deplovments are
Oracle's Database and MvSOL products.
SWO1 analysis
Strengths Weaknesses
Based on 10gen's adoption íigures. it is clear
that MongoDB has established signiíicant
de·eloper mindshare. as well as enterprise
adoption.
1he companv is still ·erv small and will likelv
ha·e to in·est in growth ií it is to properlv
ser·e its growing customer base.
Opportunities 1hreats
1here is clear interest in both distributed
database technologies and also schema-íree
databases that enable and encourage agile
de·elopment.
Ií MongoDB begins to ha·e an impact on
MvSOL adoption. expect Oracle to hit back
with the ad·antages oí its íormidable
marketing and technologv expertise. as well as
the strength oí its installed base.



Reproduced bv permission oí 1he 451 Group: copvright 2009-11. 1his report was originallv
published within 1he 451 Group`s Market Insight Ser·ice.

lor additional iníormation on 1he 451 Group or to applv íor trial access. go to:
www.the451group.com