[uncle_d]

My own experience chimes with this somewhat, having used MongoDB on my last project - quite often application data storage requirements are relatively trivial - and it is a boon to do away with the ORM layer and be able to vary any given object schema without touching the database (although in practice a .js data migration script may be involved, so this is moot). As a sidenote local cultural issue, the fact that we can operate the MongoDB servers ourselves, whereas RDBMS instances are with a central team and buried under a layer of bureaucracy was also probably an operational consideration.

When it comes to joins, these have lately been added to MongoDB, as has SQL - although the functionality is still rudimentary compared to a mature RDBMS.

But where we experienced pain was when the business decided they wanted to do live reporting. We ended up piping the data into a SQL Server instance and using SSRS.

[matwood]

> As a sidenote local cultural issue, the fact that we can operate the MongoDB servers ourselves, whereas RDBMS instances are with a central team and buried under a layer of bureaucracy was also probably an operational consideration.

This is clearly an oversight in the organization and will get fixed. I don't see it as neutral in the argument for or against some system.

> But where we experienced pain was when the business decided they wanted to do live reporting. We ended up piping the data into a SQL Server instance and using SSRS.

This is common even in RDBMs. You have a database designed to handle the running of whatever application. That design may not be the most efficient for reporting off that application. Flattening the data, and pre-aggregating is usually a good first step. Many data warehouse solutions can do some of this automagically if set up with a common schema type (like star).

[lyqwyd]

The fact that you could operate the mongo instance, but not the DB is definitely a cultural issue, or more likely a managerial issue. Definitely NOT a DB issue. I’ve worked at places where we could manage the DB ourselves, and other places where we couldn’t eve talk to the DBAs without beuraucracy. It’s all about the management in those scenarios. And the company results were as you would expect.

[uncle_d]

Sure - I’m not claiming that as a database issue at all. It’s just a side addendum to note that sometimes technical decisions can have a political aspect.