A recent blog post, MongoDB 3.2: Now Powered by PostgreSQL, contained revelations that MongoDB’s newest release, MongoDB 3.2, leverages Postgres to power its new BI connector, designed to work with SQL-compliant data analysis tools. However unlikely, it appears the biggest name in NoSQL has come to realize the tremendous power of Postgres, the world’s most advanced relational database. The Postgres community, despite predictions of relational technology’s demise in the face of NoSQL, has been welcoming, as evidenced by one blog: Meet the newest member of the PostgreSQL community: MongoDB, Inc. But the move by MongoDB underscores an important and advancing trend unfolding in the database industry as vendors seek to close gaps in their capabilities to meet the evolving needs of end users.
The data management landscape continues to rapidly innovate and deliver solutions to manage new workloads, capture new data and open new opportunities. MongoDB – like many other participants in the data management community – is part of the story, but it’s not the only part. Like “no man is an island,” no data has value in a silo. Making that data available to others outside of its own silo is necessary to achieve the maximum value from investments in SQL, NoSQL, Big Data and streaming data analytical systems.
Postgres, with its flexible architecture, has long offered the ability to provide a single point of access for disparate data systems through Foreign Data Wrappers (FDWs), an implementation of SQL/MED (Management of External Data), a part of the SQL 2003 standard. FDWs allow the OLTP system of record, represented by Postgres, to reach out and integrate into a single view all of an organization’s information, as discussed here: Postgres at the Center of Everyone’s Data World. The object relational foundation of Postgres enables continued innovation - such as fully integrated JSONB data types - and provides the flexibility that companies like MongoDB rely upon when they use Postgres to power their analytic capabilities. It’s one more example of Postgres evolving with the needs of end users in ways that other databases just don’t - relational, NoSQL, NewSQL or anything else. And it’s this flexibility that allows Postgres to power so many applications and support so many innovative use cases.
EnterpriseDB (EDB) is playing a leading role in the collaborative development of a new generation of “commercial grade” FDWs. We have led the design and contributed to the implementation of several FDWs in the Postgres open source community (including one for MongoDB and one for Hive/HDFS) so organizations can manage a cohesive view of their data, regardless of the storage engine in play. FDWs position Postgres as a central component in a hybrid data strategy, in which Postgres acts as the integrating data platform that crosses SQL and NoSQL boundaries.
MongoDB, like so many in the Postgres community and so many EDB customers, are smart to leverage Foreign Data Wrappers in Postgres to bridge SQL and NoSQL. MongoDB using Postgres as its BI connector is a great validation of the power of Postgres in a hybrid data platform strategy.
To learn more, I encourage you to watch Bruce Momjian’s talk from PGConf Silicon Valley 2015, Making Postgres Central in Your Data Center. To learn more about Postgres and how it can help integrate data across your environment, please visit our website or contact us directly.
Marc Linster is Senior Vice President, Products and Services of EnterpriseDB.