Intelligence Agency Invests In Big Data Management

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In-Q-Tel, the venture investment firm for U.S. intelligence agencies, is investing in 10gen, developer of the MongoDB open source database.

MongoDB is a document-oriented, NoSQL database that "bridges the gap" between relational databases and key-value stores, according to 10gen. Its ability to store and query both structured and unstructured data with good performance at scale is what made MongoDB an attractive investment, said In-Q-Tel VP Robert Ames in a news release.

The platform can be used for operational intelligence, content management, and high-volume data feeds, according to 10gen. It also can be paired with Hadoop for big data management. "MongoDB is built to leverage big data and holds great promise for the development of new storage and processing capabilities," Ames said.

Last month, 10gen released the latest version of its software, MongoDB 2.2, which features a new real-time aggregation framework, new sharding and replication features for multi-data-center deployments, and improved performance and database concurrency for high-scale deployments. The aggregation framework lets users directly query data without resorting to writing and running complicated, batch-oriented MapReduce jobs within the database.

[ Learn more about government big data challenges. Read State Agencies Need A Big Data Strategy. ]

In-Q-Tel has been stepping up its investment in software for managing and analyzing data. "The implications of big data loom largest ... for our analytic effort," CIA director David Petraeus said at In-Q-Tel's CEO Summit in March.

The agency recently struck development agreements with Huddle, which offers a content collaboration platform, and Adaptive Computing, to create a cloud operating system.

Founded in 2007, 10gen's other investors are Flybridge Capital Partners, New Enterprise Associates, Sequoia Capital, and Union Square Ventures. Its customers include Disney, eBay, and Foursquare.

Cybersecurity, continuity planning, and data records management top the list in our latest Federal IT Priorities Survey. Also in the new, all-digital Focus On The Foundation issue of InformationWeek Government: The FBI's next-gen digital case management system, Sentinel, is finally up and running.. (Free registration required.)