MongoDB Connector for BI¶
About the MongoDB Connector for BI¶
The MongoDB Connector for BI and associated utilities are compatible with all currently supported MongoDB server versions.
The MongoDB Connector for Business Intelligence (BI) allows users to create queries with SQL and visualize, graph, and report on their MongoDB Enterprise data using existing relational business intelligence tools such as Tableau, MicroStrategy, and Qlik.
As an alternative to using third-party data visualization tools and the BI Connector, you can use MongoDB Charts to create data visualizations directly from your MongoDB collections.
The MongoDB Connector for BI acts as a layer that translates queries and data between a
mongod or mongos instance and your reporting tool. The BI Connector
stores no data, and purely serves to bridge your MongoDB cluster with
business intelligence tools.
System Components¶
A complete BI system includes the following components:
- MongoDB database
- Data storage.
- BI Connector
- Provides a relational schema and translates SQL queries between your BI tool and MongoDB.
- ODBC data source name (DSN)
- Holds authentication and connection configuration data.
BI Tool Data visualization and analysis.
Most BI tools can import data from a DSN. Configure a DSN to point to your BI Connector instance. This provides you a wide range of BI tools and SQL clients with a single data source configuration.
Your BI tool and your DSN always run on your local desktop, but your database and your BI Connector instance may be local, on premises, or hosted. The following sections describe possible configurations for a BI system.
Hosted Database and BI Connector¶
If you don’t want to install and manage the BI Connector, you can use MongoDB Atlas, our fully-managed database-as-a-service. Databases hosted on MongoDB Atlas natively support the MongoDB Connector for BI and make it easy to start analyzing your data with your preferred BI tools. To get started, create an MongoDB Atlas cluster.
In this scenario, the database and BI Connector applications both run on MongoDB Atlas, and you set up your DSN with connection information that MongoDB Atlas provides.
Hosted Database and On Premises BI Connector¶
If you have an MongoDB Atlas deployment smaller than M10 (including the
MongoDB Atlas free tier), or if your MongoDB
instance is not hosted on MongoDB Atlas, you can run BI Connector locally and
specify a remote database address with the
--mongo-uri option when you start
the BI Connector's mongosqld process.
On Premises Database and BI Connector¶
Your organization may have installations of both MongoDB and BI Connector elsewhere on your network, in which case you can set up your DSN to point to the BI Connector server address.
Local Database and BI Connector¶
For testing and all-in-one-box local experimentation, you can run MongoDB and BI Connector on your desktop. This is the simplest configuration, perfect for quickly looking over the possibilities for data visualization with BI Connector.
Learn more about setting up a local BI Connector test installation in the Quick Start Guide.