I’m thinking about deploying to galaxy and hosting mongodb on my own dedicated server (which is WAY cheaper than mongolab, etc). So I was wondering, is it hard and error-prone to admin your own mongodb? Anyone had similar exp?
Server management is always hard if you are not used to it. If you do not know how to do these (and don’t want to spend days learning), I would suggest you go with a PaaS solution (like MongoLab):
- Set up firewalls,
- Create ssh keys,
- Set up mongo replication,
- Set up mongo oplog,
Although it is not hard to learn these things, becoming proficient takes time. When you have a public-facing website/app, you will need things to run smoothly and trying to find out why something is not working may take hours if you are not proficient at it.
Long story short, I suggest you go with MongoLab or similar, but also learn these in the background. When you believe you are proficient at these, then you can think of moving to something that you manage all by yourself.
3 Likes
Take a look at Turnkey Linux. They have a Mongo server in their appliance collection.
https://www.turnkeylinux.org/mongodb
Available as an iso for a bare metal install of any number of VM images.
1 Like
Do I really need a firewall? How can anyone learn the ip of my mongo hosting server? - it isnt present in meteor client in any way.
And, can I use Cloudflare instead?
There are robots out there that scan known IP ranges for open ports. If you use any well-known provider, I suggest you do (if your provider doesnt).
I’m not that familiar with all Cloudflare services, but if I remember correctly, I suppose you can.
1 Like
I’m getting the feeling that the answer may be yes 
Seriously, given the amount of time you and others have put in to this topic I sort of feel that may be better spent buying a professional service (time is money 
)
Are you saying that you’ve tried to admin it urself and wasnt very happy with the experience?
Not at all. We do run our own MongoDB servers. However, setting up and maintaining servers in three separate datacenters is not trivial. We have dedicated devops staff and I would estimate that around 3 hours a week on average is spent on ensuring our MongoDB installation is running correctly, has OS patches applied, backups taken and archived, DR policy requirements met, etc. And we still have to pay for hosting the servers.
What does hosting and 3 hours per week of specialised devops cost? A lot more than the few $ buying an equivalent service from a dedicated provider.
1 Like
Yeah, sounds reasonable. I guess, I’ll stick with a mongo provider then, while my project isn’t really big.
For my personal stuff (like package demos) I’m looking at IBM Bluemix at the moment. There are some good reports in the forums, so may be worth checking out.
Those guys have overwhelming product line, I don’t even know where to start. Share your exp when if you decide to roll out on their server
btw, an interesting offer here - those guys offer to manage mongodb on my own dedicated server - see ‘Bring your own hardware’ part.