October 11, 2018

MongoDB fortifies global cloud database with mLab acquisition

The acquisition seeks to deepen MongoDB’s ties with developer-centric startup communities that have gained expertise in cloud database services.

cloud database

Open-source cross-platform database facilitator MongoDB have acquired database-as-a-service provider mLab to consolidate their global cloud database services. As per the terms of the deal, mLab’s database services will be integrated into MongoDB to deepen their relationship with developer-centric communities and explore market opportunities in the database services market.

According to MongoDB, developer communities get their hands on many new technologies and microservices which later on get deployed in the cloud. They say that developers are responsible for shaping these trends as they understand and provide different solutions to businesses.

By acquiring mLab, MongoDB believe that they will stay on top of these trends by directly interfacing with a huge developer community that is anchored by the database service provider. They also claim that by getting closer to a wide developer community, MongoDB can position themselves as a provider of global cloud database service and explore more market opportunities.

Speaking about the acquisition, Will Shulman, CEO at mLab, commented:

There is a trend towards building software systems via microservices and deploying those systems in the cloud.

As this trend continues, we anticipate it will open enormous market opportunities for global cloud databases, and MongoDB will be well positioned to power these types of software systems in ways that other database technologies cannot.

We are very excited to come together with MongoDB to modernize the way companies store and manage their most valuable asset — their data.

mLab say that the acquisition deal will allow MongoDB to boost their fully-managed cloud database service MongoDB Atlas through the public cloud. They say that mLab’s unique offering in terms of database service will stand as a differentiator for the developer community.

Dev Ittycheria, President & CEO, MongoDB, commented:

Atlas has seen tremendous momentum in its first two years since launch, growing over 400 percent year over year in the second quarter of this year.

The mLab acquisition will give us the ability to scale Atlas even faster. mLab has been providing a compelling service to their customers for seven years and we are delighted to bring this talented team into the MongoDB family.

The database market is gradually picking up with moves like these following Google’s launch of their database service called Spanner last year. It will be interesting to watch how things unfold in this market here on.