MongoDB Atlas and Cloud Deployment Flashcards

What is MongoDB Atlas?

Answer: MongoDB's fully managed cloud database service available on AWS, Azure, and GCP

MongoDB Atlas is the official fully managed cloud database service from MongoDB, Inc. It automates provisioning, setup, monitoring, backups, and patching of MongoDB clusters across AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform, allowing developers to focus on application development.

Which Atlas feature automatically scales cluster storage capacity as your data grows?

Answer: Auto Expand Storage

Atlas Auto Expand Storage automatically increases storage capacity when utilization reaches a threshold, preventing out-of-disk failures. This eliminates manual storage management and scaling operations. You can also enable auto-scaling for compute (CPU and RAM) to handle variable workloads.

What is an Atlas cluster tier (M0, M10, M30, etc.)?

Answer: A predefined configuration defining CPU, RAM, and storage resources for the cluster

Atlas cluster tiers define the underlying hardware configuration: M0 is the free tier with shared resources; paid tiers (M10, M20, M30, M40, etc.) offer dedicated resources with increasing CPU, RAM, and IOPS. The tier determines performance and cost.

What does Atlas Global Clusters enable?

Answer: Zone-based data distribution across geographic regions for low-latency local reads and data sovereignty compliance

Atlas Global Clusters use MongoDB's zone sharding to distribute data across geographic regions. You define location-based zones so data is stored close to users for low-latency reads, and to comply with data residency regulations requiring data to remain in specific regions.

What is the Atlas M0 free tier limitation regarding shared clusters?

Answer: Maximum 100 MB storage and limited connections/operations per second

Atlas M0 free clusters provide approximately 512 MB storage (not 5 GB as sometimes assumed), shared CPU and RAM, limited connections, and are not suitable for production workloads. They are ideal for learning, prototyping, and small personal projects.

Which Atlas security feature restricts database access to specific IP addresses or CIDR ranges?

Answer: Network Access List (IP Whitelist)

Atlas Network Access List (formerly IP Whitelist) controls which IP addresses or CIDR blocks can connect to the Atlas cluster. Only connections from listed IPs are allowed. This is a fundamental security control that limits the cluster's attack surface.