Overview
Atlas Database
Fully managed multi-cloud storage
Queryable Encryption
Query encrypted fields in-place
Auto-scaling
Compute & storage on demand
Vector Search
HNSW & IVF on embeddings
Atlas Search
Lucene full-text, fuzzy, facets
Global Clusters
Zone sharding for sovereignty
Triggers & Streams
Event-driven + stream processing
ACID Transactions
Multi-doc distributed guarantees
Online Archive
Tier cold data, still queryable
Time Series
Optimized time-stamped storage
Aggregation Framework
Server-side data pipelines
VoyageAI
Embeddings & reranking models
Granular Details
MongoDB Application Drivers
MongoDB Atlas
Data Ecosystem
Developer Tools
Select a Component
Click on any part of the diagram to see more information here.
Disaster Recovery & Automated Failover
High availability is built into the core of MongoDB's replica set architecture. In the event of a primary node failure, Atlas automatically triggers an election to promote a healthy secondary to become the new primary, typically within seconds.
Node 1 (Primary)
Region: us-east-1
Node 2 (Secondary)
Region: us-east-2
Node 3 (Secondary)
Region: us-west-1
This automated failover ensures your application remains available with minimal disruption. For disaster recovery, placing a secondary node in a separate geographic region (like Node 2 and 3) ensures data durability and availability for reads and writes even in the event of a full regional outage. [Ref: Replication Docs]
Shard Key Strategy Comparison
The choice of shard key defines how evenly data and queries spread across shards. Compare three common strategies below — click each tab to see the trade-offs.
Ranged Shard Key
Data is partitioned into contiguous ranges based on the shard key value. Documents with "close" shard key values are likely on the same chunk/shard.
Global Deployments — Zone Sharding
Atlas Global Clusters use zone sharding to partition data across regions by a location field in the shard key. Each region owns its shard — writes are local to that zone and never cross the network. This gives you data sovereignty and single-digit millisecond latency for every user, everywhere.
Click a region to simulate a local write to that zone's shard
US Zone
EU Zone
APAC Zone
The mongos router uses the
location field in the shard key to route
each document to the correct zone's shard. Data never leaves the zone. Each shard is a 3-member replica set for HA within the zone.
[Ref: Global Clusters Docs]
Simplicity of Document Model
From 3NF to Document Model
Relational databases typically use 3rd Normal Form (3NF) schemas with multiple tables and foreign-key joins to reduce data redundancy. The document model simplifies this by embedding related data in a single document. Click a relational table to see how it maps to the intuitive document structure.
Private Network Routing Across Clouds
Atlas enables secure, private connections between your application's virtual network and your Atlas cluster, even across different cloud providers. This is achieved through VPC/VNet Peering and cloud-native Private Endpoints (AWS PrivateLink, Azure Private Link, GCP Private Service Connect).
VPC/VNet Peering
Creates a direct, bi-directional private network connection between your application's VPC/VNet and the Atlas VPC. Traffic does not traverse the public internet. Supported on AWS, Azure, and GCP.
[Ref: Atlas Peering Docs]Private Endpoints
Creates a secure, one-way endpoint from your network to the Atlas cluster. No CIDR management or firewall rules needed. Each cloud provider offers its native private endpoint service.
[Ref: Atlas Private Endpoint Docs]Getting Started: Trial Environment
M0 Free Tier
Atlas offers a perpetual free tier called "M0 Sandbox." It's ideal for learning, prototyping, and early development.
- 512 MB of storage
- Shared RAM and vCPU
- Basic monitoring and security features
- Available on AWS, GCP, and Azure