Forward Intel uses Mongo for ...causalâ?? analytics

This was originally posted to the Forward Intel blog

Forward Intelligence Systems has chosen MongoDB to serve as the backend datastore to support DataPoint, a new analytics system designed to reveal deeper meaning behind typical business intelligence data. Endless tables, graphs and charts are replaced with simple decision-aiding ...plain English analytics“ to help make the job of the business analyst and company owner quicker and easier.

DataPoint is designed to run on top of existing analytics systems like Google Analytics, Piwik, Open Web Analytics and HubSpot. Using the hosted solution, users simply connect their analytics account to their DataPoint profile and the application does the rest. DataPoint will import the data from multiple sources and will identify trends and patterns, removing the guesswork out ofwhy a web site may have seen a decrease in traffic in the month of July. Using Bayesian math, DataPoint determines the causal relationship between an event and its most likely cause.

MongoDB is a powerful semi-structured database engine built to withstand the increased traffic that today's web applications endure. It is fast, light-weight and extremely scalable, making it a clear and convincing choice for large scale business intelligence and analytics systems. Mongo stores data using a key/value paradigm within entities known as ...documents“, and queried using simple and straight-forward syntax similar to that of Structured Query Language (SQL). Mongo is schema-less, which means database developers are not confined to the typical column and row structure of relational databases. Dynamic data structures are essential for managing big data applications.

Further - and critical to its power and flexibility - Mongo contains support for MapReduce, which is an engine that allows for rapid processing of large amounts of data. Implementing algorithms designed to chug through incredibly large volumes of data simply would not be feasible without Mongo's batch processing support.

...At Forward Intel, we're incredibly excited to start using MongoDB,“ said the company's CEO, Steve Adcock. “Mongo's recent award of over $40 million to further its development ensures that it is here to stay, and we are confident that Mongo will serve us quite well.“

Tagged with: analytics, production uses, mongodb good, MongoDB, Mongo, NoSQL, Polyglot persistence, 10gen