SQL access to MongoDB

MongoDB has grown quickly to become one of the most popular enterprise databases on the market today, and Easysoft is using its data access expertise to provide these enterprises with SQL access to their "big data" solution.

Enterprises need SQL access for Business Intelligence (BI) and other analytics applications, connecting web applications to database back ends, data access for business applications (empowering corporate users), mobile deployment, and data integration (ETL).

Amongst our MongoDB clients, gaining SQL access to their complex data for Business Intelligence is their main requirement, which is why we addressed this problem first.

As their primary pain point is getting data for Business Intelligence and analytic applications, we know that read access is important to them, so our initial MongoDB ODBC offering is designed to offer them just that.

As our expertise in data access and ODBC connectivity is pretty amazing, our approach to connecting to the JSON datasets held within MongoDB is also pretty amazing.

MongoDB JSON document structures are free from typical architecture constraints, so there is no predictable database, table, or column structure of a relational database. Most ODBC or data transfer solutions available today would attempt to flatten these datasets and bring back an oversimplified view of the nested data, not Easysoft. This first release of the driver reads what your MongoDB schema is really like on the fly, and allows you to read the data based on that view.

Apart from the increased speed of deployment, the benefits of this approach are simple:

• We expose the complex "big data" types.
• As your complex data grows, your SQL view remains simplified.
• We can offer SQL JOINS of your MongoDB data.
• The data you get back will be richer and more accurate

Future developments will include a MongoDB Schema Editor that will allow you to inform our ODBC driver exactly what your MongoDB schema looks like, allowing a perfect view of your data.

This Schema Editor will also allow you to adjust SQL types and sizes, alter column and table names, and even hide whole databases, tables, and columns from your end users and ODBC applications, ultimately offering you complete flexibility on how you want to expose your MongoDB data to the ODBC application.