SlamData Releases Open Source Analytics for MongoDB

BOULDER, Colo., June 24, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- SlamData, Inc., commercial developer of the SlamData open source project, today announced the availability of the first alpha release of their MongoDB analytics solution.

Installers for the alpha release are available from the SlamData website, or the project can be accessed on GitHub and built from source code. The project is licensed under the AGPL 3, the same license as MongoDB, and the production release is expected in Q3 2014.

SlamData allows for unrestricted ad hoc queries on data stored in MongoDB. There's no need for ETL or coding. SlamSQL, the SQL dialect supported by SlamData, allows anyone to write standard SQL queries against data stored in MongoDB, even if that data is heavily nested or has non-uniform structure. SlamData includes a high-level graphical front-end that makes it simple to build and share reports that pull data from MongoDB.

According to SlamData CEO Jeff Carr, a veteran entrepreneur who has spent years working in the analytics space, "Developers are adopting MongoDB because of the flexibility it provides building and deploying applications. Current analytics solutions don't allow users to take advantage of the rich nature of JSON data, forcing them to make the data fit a traditional tabular model and reducing flexibility and time-to-value."

Continued Carr, "Brittle ETL models that are required for most JSON analytics make it far too difficult to ask ad hoc questions of data stored in MongoDB. This makes it cumbersome to gain immediate value from the data."

SlamData tackles this issue directly using advanced mathematical extensions to relational algebra. SlamData's approach allows full support for SQL queries executing directly on a MongoDB database (or replica set), and also the ability to support much more advanced queries than are possible in ANSI SQL.

The open source project already boasts users even before its first release. "SlamData's approach will allow us to get value from our MongoDB much more efficiently than other solutions," says Dustin Mallory, CTO of MobileDay, a company building on MongoDB. Continues Mallory, "Other solutions required extensive coding or development of complex ETL processes that depend upon significant engineering resources. Those that are further along typically only work with specific SQL databases. With SlamData we can access our MongoDB data directly using standard SQL queries and reporting tools. This saves us time and engineering resources, and reduces costs where we can replace multiple tools and duplicate data sets with one."

The company's patent-pending technology, invented by SlamData CTO John A. De Goes, is based on a formal generalization of 40-year-old relational algebra called MRA ("Murray"). De Goes is a well-known big data expert and founder of a previous TechStars big data startup in an adjacent field.

MRA natively supports analytics on multi-structured data (anything from flat, homogeneous data, to multidimensional, heterogeneous data). Unlike all legacy RDBMS technology, there's no need for ETL or transforming data to first-normal form, and MRA supports everything from simple sums and counts to statistical analysis.

"With SlamData," Carr says, "our driving motto is to make the analytics fit the data, instead of making the data fit the analytics. We're very excited about what this alpha release means for the future of the NoSQL market, and in particular, for native analytics on MongoDB."

SOURCE SlamData, Inc.