Sustainable business practices are no longer optional, they are imperative. A survey by Small Business Britain and BT Group found that 99% of small firms recognise the importance of sustainability.
But rather than seeing the required changes as an unwanted addition of work, forward-thinking business leaders are increasingly seeing the opportunities and benefits on offer.
One way of doing this is through sustainable data management, which when done right allows organizations to store and access enterprise data in a way that is cost-effective, resilient, and with minimal environmental impact.
While some decision makers will have concerns around the costs and resources required to achieve this, businesses should find the initial outlay is outweighed by the long-term opportunities. IBM research found 75% of executives believe sustainability drives better business results.
It also shows that organizations that embed sustainability throughout the business are more likely to see financial benefits, yet only 31% of respondents report they incorporate sustainability data and insights into operational improvements to a great extent.
One of the positive outcomes on offer for those that do it successfully is an improved ability to win and retain customers, as YouGov research found more than half (52%) of people consider a brand’s eco-credentials before buying. If your company is seen to be doing the right thing, it’s likely to prove more attractive to do business with.
In this blog we’ll take a closer look at why it’s worth adopting sustainable data management practices to get more value from enterprise data with MongoDB and some of the ways you can do it.
Steps to a more sustainable future
There are some typical enterprise data management issues that could be preventing your business from operating more efficiently. As a versatile NoSQL database, MongoDB in combination with the right third party tools can help organizations overcome them. Once complete, you’ll be on track to reap the rewards.
Optimize data storage
In a world where data volumes are ever increasing, storing more data than you need increases energy consumption and storage costs even further. Poorly optimized queries are another issue, as they waste computational resources and energy. This makes efficient data storage an essential part of sustainable data management efforts.
Here’s how:
- Archiving policies: MongoDB’s TTL (Time to Live) indexes can automatically delete outdated or unused data, minimizing storage costs and energy use.
- Schema design: A well-designed schema reduces data duplication and improves storage efficiency. MongoDB’s flexible schema allows you to store only what’s necessary, while a schema explorer tool will spot outliers and anomalies.
- Compression: MongoDB WiredTiger compression reduces storage size without impacting performance.
Tackle disparate data
Data stored in multiple locations can cause inefficiencies in access, storage, and processing. Bringing your enterprise data together and organizing it reduces redundancy and unnecessary resource use.
Here’s how:
- Database migration tools: Don’t let migration blockers hold back your business. Moving data into MongoDB from other platforms can eliminate redundancy and give your organization more agility, scalability, and modernized operations.
- Data visualization: An SQL to MongoDB Migration Wizard gives insights into your data structure, making it easier to streamline processes.
Improve query efficiency
Poorly optimized queries waste time and computational resources. Optimizing your database queries is a win for performance and energy consumption.
Here’s how:
- Query builder: With a visual query builder tool even non-technical members can construct efficient queries, which will reduce errors and avoid unnecessary data retrieval. For example, it can filter the data and retrieve only the fields you’re interested in.
- Query profiler: A query profiler allows you to profile databases to quickly find out how long queries took to run, when they ran, and how often.
- Indexing: Create indexes to reduce the computational overhead of frequent queries. Tools like Studio 3T’s Visual Explain feature can help identify and address inefficient queries and missing indexes.
- Aggregation pipelines: Use an aggregation framework for batch processing, as this is far more resource efficient than multiple real-time queries.
- Performance monitoring: Continuously monitor query performance using MongoDB Atlas or third-party tools to ensure optimal resource usage.
Use intelligent scaling
Ineffective scalability is another factor to look out for, as over-provisioning cloud resources to handle peak loads can result in underutilized infrastructure. Efficient scalability is crucial to reducing waste.
Here’s how:
Autoscaling: MongoDB Atlas supports autoscaling, meaning you only use the resources you need and avoid over-provisioning.
Sharding: Use an effective sharding strategy to distribute data and workloads evenly across servers, reducing bottlenecks and resource overuse. Data analysis and query tools are a great way to test, monitor, and optimize sharded collections.
Serverless options: Consider serverless databases in MongoDB Atlas to match resource usage with demand dynamically.
Adopt green development practices
Inefficient practices, such as regular deployments and excessive resource usage during development cycles, contribute to higher emissions. By optimizing your development cycles you can reduce environmental impact.
Here’s how:
Containerization: Use lightweight containers for testing and deployment, minimizing resource usage.
Virtualized environments: Cloud-based development environments like MongoDB Atlas’s Developer Data Platform can remove the need to maintain resource-heavy local setups.
CI/CD Pipelines: Automate testing and deployment with efficient CI/CD pipelines to reduce redundant operations.
Ready to reap the benefits?
By adopting sustainable data management practices organizations using MongoDB can lower costs and improve their efficiency.
Steps such as fine-tuning performance to allow faster query response times and streamlining development processes can also boost operational effectiveness. And in a world where people are increasingly demanding companies to ‘do the right thing’, demonstrating a genuine commitment to environmental responsibility can improve your reputation with customers and stakeholders.
