Wednesday, May 25, 2016

Five Easy Ways to Get Started With MongoDB

1. Download the community edition and play
The community edition is available freely and there are installers for all major operating systems (Linux, OS X, Windows and Solaris). This makes getting a system up and running quickly very easy to do. It should only take a few minutes to install MongoDB and you're ready to start playing and learning how to work with the quickest growing and most popular NoSQL database.

2. Work through the getting started guide
MongoDB provides a getting started guide for the `mongo` shell, Python, Java, C++, NodeJS and C#. Working through the examples provided there will get you up and going with the basics in no time. From there you'll be ready to move on to more involved examples and walkthroughs that you might find on the internet.

3. Take a course at MongoDB University
MongoDB has the best set of online learning courses out there. You can learn to code against MongoDB in four different languages currently: Python, Java, NodeJS and .NET. There are two different DBA courses covering basic and advanced topics. There is an advanced level course on cluster management. These courses are seven weeks long, with the exception of the cluster management course which is only two weeks. Having been through most these courses I wholeheartedly recommend them. They are well done and the forums are moderated by a great group of online TAs with deep knowledge in the respective course topics.

4. Read Kristina Chodorow's MongoDB: The Definitive Guide
If you only read one book on MongoDB, this is the book to read. Even though the second edition came out in early 2013 and covers MongoDB 2.6, you will still learn a lot by reading it. This is also a must read for anyone who's looking at studying for the certification exams. Rumor has it that a third edition is in the works, but I've not seen anything definitive on that. Once it comes out, I'll definitely be grabbing a copy as quickly as I can.

5. Join your local MongoDB user group
Perhaps the funnest way to learn MongoDB and how to go from the basics to more advanced topics is to join your local MongoDB User Group (MUG). These groups are frequented by very passionate MongoDB users and you'll find talks ranging from beginning to advanced topics. Equally important to the talks are the conversations you'll have and the friendships you'll make with your fellow community members.

Note that MongoDB makes it easy for anyone to get started with their database and they have built a great community to help get answers to any questions new users might have. Very few products have that type of community support and buy in. In addition to the community, the employees that I have met and worked with are some of the nicest people around. They've always had time to help me through problems in a way that I didn't seem rushed to get out of their hair. If MongoDB fits your use case definitely install it and put it through its paces and you might be surprised at how easy and quick it is to get things running.

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