Bye Bye Mongo, Hello Postgres • Hacker News Board

Re: Bye Bye Mongo, Hello Postgres

#31

Post by mey » Wed, Dec 19, 2018, 7:12 PM UTC

SonnyWortzik wrote: post #24

I never got around to using Mongo as my main doc db because it was incredibly hard to find a management tool. I now use json supported functions in SQL Server and do not have the need for a different type of database. SQL Server handles my small 'documents db' implementation with the infrastructure of a RDMS. Win win for me. To me Mongo just got popular by mistake way too early. It's like having a celebrity retweet y…

I really like SQL Server, especially the dev environment, 1st and 3rd party management tools. Not sure if they have improved this, but replication was a limiting factor and the pricing changes a few years back pushed it down my preference list.

Re: Bye Bye Mongo, Hello Postgres

#32

Post by ken » Wed, Dec 19, 2018, 7:13 PM UTC

elevenworth wrote: post #11

The creator of Envoy had some choice words about Mongo a few days ago. https://twitter.com/mattklein123/status/1074717204224999427 Plenty of people here like to dish on Mongo and the product seems to have been re-architected a few times since I used it seven years ago. By what metrics can we say the product is one worthy of passing a HN smell test? Passing Jepsen was seemingly not enough. https://www.mongodb.com/jeps…

> the product seems to have been re-architected a few times since I used it seven years ago

That's really not what I want to hear about a place I'd be storing data.

Was it just a prototype back then? (When did it stop being a prototype?) Would the creators be comfortable using version 1 still?

Actually, I think that could be a good test of database stability: would you be willing to run a 5 year old version of your own software?

Re: Bye Bye Mongo, Hello Postgres

#33

Post by slaymaker1907 » Wed, Dec 19, 2018, 7:14 PM UTC

It seems like the use case of a news agency would be better served by storing metadata in a RDMS and using something like HDFS or other file system for the actual articles.

Re: Bye Bye Mongo, Hello Postgres

#34

Post by scarface74 » Wed, Dec 19, 2018, 7:14 PM UTC

emn13 wrote: post #29

scarface74 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn’t you be able to outsource database server management? Are you referring to outsourcing schema management?

By server management - do you mean VM? Sure, you can outsource that. I mean that what and how a home-grown application uses a database tends to mean that database (software/schema/optimization/whatever) management cannot be application agnostic. So if you outsource this, you're either effectively hiring a consultant that still needs to deal with and learn details of specifically your application, or you should assume…

Everything you are saying is true, but when people talk about managed services, for the most part they are referring to someone else managing the VM, the operating system and the server application running on the VM - in this case the database.

Re: Bye Bye Mongo, Hello Postgres

#35

Post by jack6e » Wed, Dec 19, 2018, 7:15 PM UTC

Specific technology choices aside, this was an incredible write-up of their migration process: thorough, organized, readable prose about a technical topic. It is helpful to read how other teams handle these types of processes in real production systems. Perhaps most refreshing is the description of choices made for the various infrastructure pieces, because it is reasonable and real-world. Blog posts so often describe building a system from scratch where all latest-and-greatest software can be used at each layer. However, here is a more realistic mix of, on the one hand, swapping out DBs for an entirely new (and better) one, but on the other hand finding new tools within their existing primary language to extend the API and proxy.

Great read. Well done.

Re: Bye Bye Mongo, Hello Postgres

#36

Post by z92 » Wed, Dec 19, 2018, 7:15 PM UTC

Wanted to read something about the cost impact, and performance impact after migration. But couldn't find that in the article.

Re: Bye Bye Mongo, Hello Postgres

#37

Post by bdcravens » Wed, Dec 19, 2018, 7:16 PM UTC

CyanLite2 wrote: post #26

Seems like there's one of these articles every week. "Goodbye {Postgres|Mongo|MySQL}, Hello {MySQL|Mongo|Postgres}"

When was the last "Goodbye X, Hello Mongo" article?

Re: Bye Bye Mongo, Hello Postgres

#38

Post by slaymaker1907 » Wed, Dec 19, 2018, 7:17 PM UTC

nemild wrote: post #30

The Guardian example was heavily used by MongoDB as a case study to pitch their database to others in 2011: https://www.mongodb.com/customers/guardian https://www.mongodb.com/presentations/mongodb-guardian https://www.slideshare.net/tackers/why-we-chose-mongodb-for-... And reupping my previous, three-part series on MongoDB: On MongoDB NoSQL databases were the future. MongoDB was the database for "modern" web engineer…

People realized a lot of the claimed not only SQL offerings were actually no SQL at all. It turns out it is nice to have those extra features of NoSQL as well as a more traditional RMDS instead of just the NoSQL parts.

Re: Bye Bye Mongo, Hello Postgres

#39

Post by _gi12 » Wed, Dec 19, 2018, 7:18 PM UTC

Document DBs are like blockchain projects - overhyped and worse than existing solutions for nearly every use case. Why do ostensibly smart engineers keep falling for this stuff?

Re: Bye Bye Mongo, Hello Postgres

#40

Post by diminoten » Wed, Dec 19, 2018, 7:18 PM UTC

At this point I'm happy enough with JSONB that, even as someone who wants to try new things, I'm finding it hard to justify trying out MongoDB.

My SAs seem cautiously willing to try it, but I won't put them through the work of learning how to manage it unless I can find a clear advantage over Postgres+JSONB.