Introduction to MongoDB Atlas

MongoDB Atlas is MongoDB’s fully-managed cloud database service. The service is built to handle enterprise workloads, with support for global clusters.

You can store your data with Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform, or Microsoft Azure. However, you don’t need to set up an account with any of these platforms. MongoDB Atlas takes care of all this behind the scenes.

MongoDB Atlas also automatically handles backend administrative processes such as provisioning resources, setting up clusters, or scaling services. Most of the tasks you perform are simple point-and-click operations that you carry out through the service’s centralized web interface.

What is included in the MongoDB Atlas free cluster?

No introduction to MongoDB Atlas is complete without mentioning its free M0 tier, which includes:

• 512 MB of storage
• Shared RAM
• Highly available replica sets, end-to-end encryption, automated patches, REST API
• Max connections: 100
• Network performance: Low
• Max databases: 100
• Max collections: 500

The free tier cluster regions available are:

• N. Virginia (us-east-1)
• Frankfurt (eu-central-1)
• Singapore (ap-southeast-1)
• Mumbai (ap-south-1)

After this introduction to MongoDB Atlas, you’ll learn how to set up a cluster using the M0 free tier, whitelist a connection IP address, and create the MongoDB user which you’ll then use to connect to your cluster through Studio 3T.

By the end of this section, you will learn how to:

• Set up a MongoDB Atlas cluster
• Configure MongoDB Atlas to connect to a network

What you will need:

• Internet access to the MongoDB Atlas websites
• An email address for registering with the MongoDB Atlas service

Terms you might not know:

cluster: the term MongoDB Atlas uses to refer to the MongoDB deployments managed by its cloud service (source)