For customers with large volumes of data, NoSQL databases provide a useful, highly scalable alternative to the traditional RDBMS. Developers can add support for read-only visualization and mapping of NoSQL data sources, such as MongoDB, into ArcGIS.
Plug-in data sources are a long standing method for displaying data in ArcGIS that is stored in non-traditional formats. MongoDB is an open source NoSQL document storage database featuring replication and data partitioning across multiple machines, robust ad hoc query support, and support for spatial indexing of simple points.
Developers can use the example code provided here as a starting point and reference for their own NoSQL plug-in data sources. Using the code sample will require Visual Studio 2010 C#, MongoDB’s .net driver, and the .NET Assemblies for ArcGIS.
Thomas Breed, who supplied the info for this post, talked about Plug-in data sources and MongoDB in the Effective Geodatabase Programming session at this year’s Developer Conference. You can find a video of that session HERE, Flash Gordon to about the 33:30 mark for the spiel on Plug-in data sources.
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