MongoDB with AWS

MongoDB Atlas on AWS

MongoDB Atlas is the officially-supported way to run MongoDB in the cloud. Hosted on AWS (or Azure/GCP), it removes operational burden while keeping MongoDB flexibility.

Why MongoDB for AWS Applications?

Flexible Schema

• Documents store nested data naturally
• Easy to evolve schema over time
• No rigid tables like SQL

Developer Friendly

• JSON-like query language
• Native support in most languages
• Great for startups iterating quickly

Scalability

• Horizontal scaling via sharding
• Automatic data distribution
• Handles millions of documents

AWS Integration

• Atlas on AWS infrastructure
• Direct connection to EC2, Lambda, ECS
• No data transfer charges (same region)
• IAM authentication available

MongoDB Atlas Architecture

Replica Set (default)

• 3+ nodes for redundancy
• One primary (writes), two secondaries (reads)
• Automatic failover if primary fails
• Continuous backup

Sharded Cluster (high scale)

• Data distributed across shards
• Each shard is a replica set
• Handles terabytes of data
• Complex but necessary for huge datasets

Global Clusters (advanced)

• Replicate data across regions
• Read-only replicas in other regions
• Latency optimization for global apps

Pricing Tiers

M10 (~$57/month)

• Good for: dev, staging, small production apps
• Shared infrastructure
• Basic monitoring

M30 (~$400/month)

• Good for: growing production apps
• Dedicated infrastructure
• Advanced monitoring, backup

M50+ (~$1,000+/month)

• Good for: large production systems
• High throughput, large dataset
• Full automation

Data Protection

Encryption at Rest

• All data encrypted with AES 256-bit
• MongoDB owns encryption keys (or you manage with custom keys)
• Applies to all backups

Encryption in Transit

• TLS 1.2+ for all connections
• Certificates managed by Atlas
• End-to-end secure data flow

Backup & Recovery

• Continuous backups (every 5 minutes)
• Point-in-time recovery (last 35 days)
• Snapshots on-demand
• Restore to new cluster (non-destructive)

MongoDB vs DynamoDB vs RDS

Getting Started with MongoDB Atlas

1. Create Cluster

• Go to MongoDB Atlas
• Create organization/project
• Create cluster (choose AWS, region, size)

2. Configure Network

• Add IP addresses to whitelist
• Create database user
• Get connection string

3. Connect from Application

const client = new MongoClient(connectionString);
const db = client.db('myapp');
const result = await db.collection('users').find({}).toArray();

4. Set Up Backups

• Enable continuous backup
• Configure snapshot frequency
• Test restore procedure

Best Practices

Data Modeling

• Denormalize data (embed related docs)
• Avoid deep nesting (impacts query performance)
• Use references for large arrays

Performance

• Create indexes on frequently queried fields
• Monitor query performance via Atlas metrics
• Use aggregation pipeline for complex queries

Security

• Use IAM authentication (EC2 → MongoDB)
• Enable IP whitelisting
• Encrypt sensitive fields at application level
• Regular security audits

Operations

• Regular backups and recovery testing
• Monitor storage growth
• Plan for scale before it becomes critical

Related Services

• AWS Architecture Review
• AWS Application Modernization