Following Data Summit 2014 in Manhattan, I spoke with panels of industry experts about NoSQL technologies related to financial services.  Coincidentally, MongoDB headquarters is down the street and they have very clever business cards.

I was able to speak with conference attendees about their use of MongoDB and learned how valuable it is for ingesting and storing raw data for operational use including tick data, FIX messages, SWIFT, FpML, etc. I learned about several high data volume use cases being driven by regulations such as Dodd-Frank and EMIR.  The consensus was that standards based SQL access provides greater potential for adoption of MongoDB by seamlessly integrating from a wide range of BI or warehousing tools for regulatory reporting and analytics directly from the source system.

Avoid the loss of data from flattening collections for SQL

The feedback I hear from financial services shops with SQL access to NoSQL is that the sampling of data to define a schema introduces potential for data loss, which is not an option for regulatory reporting.  What happens to embedded arrays?  What if the “schema” on read changes?  Will my ETL, Pig or Map/Reduce jobs break as document structures change?

A new SQL approach to MongoDB so you can have your cake and eat it too

DataDirect introduces the first reliable MongoDB ODBC connector that provides flexible normalized “schema on read” functionality to query MongoDB using SQL, while optimizing SQL queries against the expanding MongoDB query API.  This logical schema does not require additional ETL steps or data movement, and is yet another engineering marvel for DataDirect R&D.

The case for standards based connectivity to MongoDB

1. BI Infrastructure: Instantly connect any versions of your BI tools across SAP Business Objects, IBM Cognos, Tableau, Oracle Business Intelligence (OBIEE), Microstrategy, SQL Server Reporting Services, SAS, SPSS, Qlikview, Spotfire, and more.  Or extract the data with less development time using ETL platforms such as IBM DataStage, Informatica, Ab Initio, SSIS and more.  A JDBC driver will be available as well for those building organic warehousing infrastructure.

2. Database Federation: Given the tiered economics of database storage, MongoDB can serve as a lower cost staging area for either structured or unstructured data that is accessible directly in real-time using ODBC in conjunction with RDBMS federation technologies including Oracle Database Gateway and SQL Server Linked Server.

3. Democratization of MongoDB: Standard SQL access to data enables a larger audience to derive business value.  Especially for self service analysts or citizen developers who are unfamiliar with MongoDB APIs.  It’s common for them to run Microsoft Office, Data Visualization Tools, or even SaaS BI applications that have open JDBC support such as Birst.

Are we the Splice of MongoDB?

We’re not guaranteeing ACID compliance, but it sure does look like an RDBMS through our connection.

Learn more about SQL access to MongoDB

We expect GA later this month after which point you can download the DataDirect MongoDB ODBC driver.

Register to meet the core product owners at MongoDB World behind this engineering feat, or call us at 1-888-332-6797 to learn about our direct connection to MongoDB that gives you the power of both SQL and NoSQL.

If you’re a business intelligence or data warehousing professional in financial services for which MongoDB is one of many sources you consume, here’s a great webinar to learn more about why your operations team adopted MongoDB: How to Drive Business Value in Financial Services with MongoDB