What is MongoDB Atlas?
Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS) is a service that allows you to set up, deploy, and scale a database without worrying about on-premise physical hardware, software updates, and the details of configuring for performance. With DBaaS, a cloud provider does all that for you—and gets you up and running right away.
MongoDB Atlas is a fully-managed cloud database that handles all the complexity of deploying, managing, and healing your deployments on the cloud service provider of your choice (AWS , Azure, and GCP). MongoDB Atlas is the best way to deploy, run, and scale MongoDB in the cloud. With Atlas, you’ll have a MongoDB database running with just a few clicks, and in just a few minutes.
So, let’s look at the steps needed to get started using MongoDB Atlas.
Getting Started with MongoDB Atlas
To begin using MongoDB Atlas, you’ll need to do the following:
- Create a MongoDB Cloud account.
- Create a MongoDB Atlas cluster.
- Configure network access and create a cluster user.
- Connect to the cluster.
MongoDB Atlas has a free tier, so you won’t need any payment or credit card information.
Now, let’s get started!
Creating a MongoDB Atlas Account
Registration
In order to create an Atlas account, navigate to https://www.mongodb.com/cloud/atlas/register.
You can sign up using your Google account. This would be the preferred method; however, you can also register using your email address.
Organizations and Projects
At the end of the sign-up process, you will be prompted to create an organization and a project.
Organizations allow you to group and define users and teams, and grant them access to the different projects.
Projects allow you to define and organize resources such as database clusters, triggers, and data lakes. A common way to use projects is to define each environment as a project. For example, you can have a separate project for development, testing, and production.
You can skip this step and go directly to the management console for MongoDB Atlas. But you will need an organization and a project in order to create a database cluster, so it makes sense to do this step now. If you decide to skip it, you’ll be able to create an organization and a project later.
Setting Up a Cluster in MongoDB Atlas
Once you have an Atlas account and have created an organization and a project, you’ll be able to create a database cluster.
Make sure you have the desired organization and project selected in the top navigation dropdowns. Then, select “Clusters” from the left navigation menu and click on the Build a Cluster button.