Things to Do Before Going Into Production With MongoDB

When using MongoDB in production, there are a number of recommendations to consider that can be quite helpful with issues such as performance, availability, and security. Some of the key considerations for using MongoDB in a production environment are outlined in this checklist.

Use 64-bit Builds

While MongoDB provides a 32-bit build, it is intended for development machines since there is a storage limitation of 2GB in the 32-bit version (the 64-bit version uses memory mapped files to allow more storage).

Updates to One or More Documents

MongoDB only updates one document by default, but if you want to be able to update multiple documents that match your query, then you will need to set the multi-parameter to a value of true. For example, MongoDB provides the following example that can be used to do this in the mongo shell:

Simply change bool_multi to a value of true to allow updating of multiple documents.

Make Sure Journaling Is Enabled

To maintain the durability of write operations, it is recommended to keep journaling enabled. This allows MongoDB to write change operations to the journal before changes are applied to the data files. This allows everything in the journal to be recovered if MongoDB were to encounter an unexpected stoppage, which ensure the data remains in a consistent state.

BSON Document Size

The size of a BSON document in MongoDB is limited to 16 megabytes. If you determine that you will need documents of a larger size, then the MongoDB team recommends you use GridFS, which uses chunking behind the scenes so that you can use larger documents.

RAID Arrays

If you are using a RAID array for your disks, it is recommended that you use a RAID-10 implementation, as other types of RAID arrays often lack either in performance or availability in comparison. For example, using RAID-5 or RAID-6 will not provide you with the performance you will need for MongoDB.

Networking and Security

It is strongly recommended that a production implementation of MogoDB be run only in an environment that can be trusted. First, the network in which it runs should disallow access from any unknown networks, systems, or machines. This can be best ensured by allowing access only to the systems that you absolutely know require it, such as your monitoring services or your application servers.

Also, you will want to review the recommendations of the MongoDB team for configuring network interfaces and firewalls.

In addition, there are some additional suggestions for firewall configuration for those using Linux implementations and those using Windows implementations.

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