Summary

At the core of most large-scale web applications and services is a high-performance data storage solution. The backend data store is responsible for storing everything from user account information to shopping cart items to blog and comment data. Good web applications must be able to store and retrieve data with accuracy, speed, and reliability. Therefore, the data storage mechanism you choose must be able to perform at a level that satisfies user demand.

There are several different data storage solutions available to store and retrieve data needed by your web applications. The three most common are direct file system storage in files, relational databases, and NoSQL databases. The data store this book focuses on is MongoDB, which is a NoSQL database.

In this chapter you learned about MongoDB and design considerations for the structure of data and configuration of a database. You learned about collections, documents, and the types of data that can be stored in them. You also learned how to plan your data model, what questions you need to answer, and the mechanisms built into MongoDB to satisfy the demands your database needs.