MongoDB Atlas is a managed MongoDB cloud service offering by MongoDB. MongoDB Atlas is a robust, multi cloud database service having capabilities of automatic scale up and scale down for MongoDB clusters. MongoDB Atlas offers cross cloud and cross region replicas for disaster recovery.

MongoDB Atlas clustering solution is a self-healing, i.e. it continuously monitors cluster health and fails over automatically in case if primary node health is deteriorated. This event happens without end user realizing that there was a failover. MongoDB Atlas also has built in performance metrics and query insights. While MongoDB Atlas cross region replica provides fast local reads and regional disaster recovery capabilities, it is also possible to create ‘global cluster’ for localized read-write and data sovereignty.

MongoDB Atlas pricing is consumption based, i.e. every cluster tier has an hourly price attached. In addition to consumption charges displayed in MongoDB Atlas Cluster Configuration UI, data transfer, backup and support charges are added on top of hourly price.

While MongoDB Atlas pricing mechanism looks straight forward, cost can quicky raise if not monitored closely. Below things needs to be closely monitored to optimize cost

(1)   Instance Right-Sizing: - MongoDB Atlas has minimum and maximum cluster tier. This should be carefully selected to avoid under usage and optimize peak usage

(2)   Storage Size: - Unwanted data needs to be archived/purged to keep check on overall storage size

(3)   Backups: - Backup policy should be aligned to RPO/RTO SLAs.

(4)   Cross Region: - Cross region replicas incur data transfer charges on top of consumption-based charges

(5)   Support Cost: - Support cost is usually on top of the overall cost incurred. Therefore, optimizing overall cost will automatically reduce total support cost

(6)   Optimal Data Management: - Managing schemas and index efficiently will result in less memory consumption and therefore avoiding higher instance tier usage