Posted April 9, 2012

10Gen Takes Open Source NoSQL MongoDB Commercial with Red Hat

By Sean Michael Kerner

The emerging NoSQL database market isn't just for startups anymore. 10gen the lead commercial sponsor behind the open source MongoDB database is partnering with enterprise Linux vendor Red Hat in a bid to grow marketshare.

The partnership will see MongoDB certified for enterprise use on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and 6 as well as providing tools and support for joint customers. Mike Evans, VP of Business Development at Red Hat told InternetNews.com that there is now a move towards a new era of apps with mobile and cloud as the base. Those apps increasingly are moving away from traditional database in favor of NoSQL, especially MongoDB.

"MongoDB has come up in high demand in our customer base for new Internet apps as well as enterprise apps," Evans said.

Erik Frieberg, vice president of marketing and alliances with 10gen explained that the goal of the new partnership is to make it easier for MongoDB developers to deploy on top of Red Hat platforms. Frieberg noted that Red Hat and MongoDB already have 'dozens' of joint customers and the new effort will aim to expand the numbers further. The partnership will provide best practices, blue prints and reference designs for deploying MongoDB with Red Hat Enterprise Linux and the JBoss Application Server.

"If you look at Red Hat Enterprise Linux and what enterprises are trying to do with NoSQL, they are often running dozens of servers," Friedberg said. "The new templates and best practices make it easier for them to understand and automate their deployment."

Items such as SSD configuration, memory requirements as well as scale out strategies are all part of the mix as well. Friedberg added that within MongoDB there are multiple types of databases including config and arbiter servers, each of which requires a different configuration.

"So now our customers can leverage these best practices to automate these deployments and also know that we've certified MongoDB on top of Red Hat Enterprise Linux," said Frieberg. "So it's about piece of mind, automation and efficiency."

Red Hat is the only Linux platform on which MongoDB is currently certified. From Red Hat's perspective, MongoDB is currently the only NoSQL database that is certified to run on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and 6.

"In the database area, we find that customers are much more cautious about trusting their data, when there is no one to stand behind it," Evans said. "So we believe it is a perfect match with 10 Gen commercializing the MongoDB technology offering support and updates and our core customer base who pay Red Hat for support."

Red Hat's use of MongoDB isn't just about customers either. Red Hat also uses MongoDB in its own infrastructure as part of a cloud service provider updating system called the Red Hat update infrastructure. Evans explained that the update infrastructure is a product that enables cloud service providers to be able to keep images updated at a massive scale.

"In creating that technology we needed a database and MongoDB was chosen and it works seamlessly and boom, it's in there and functioning," Evans said. "So Red Hat is also a MongoDB user success story."

Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of the IT Business Edge Network, the network for technology professionals Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.