Querying MongoDB with JSON / HTTP / REST Interface

Question

I am building an ASP.Net web application and want to access data from MongoDB (remotely hosted). Any of my documents looks like this (have ensured index on Utc field);

{ 
   "_id" : { "$oid" : "509501393e8785025c10bc21" }, 
   "Index" : 1,
   "Url" : "http:...", 
   "CameraId" : 123,  
   "Utc" : { "$date" : 1351955858006 } 
}

Considering the performance on user end, I want to fetch this data at max speed. One option that i have tried is calling a local Web Service via JSON on Page.aspx which uses MongoDB C# driver to query documents between two Dates (Utc). That works but seems like using web service adds some extra milliseconds in request/response cycle (request for single document using db.foo.findOne() is served in 1.3 seconds on average). Average number of documents in that collection is 50,000 which will increase up-to 30,00,000.

My questions are:

1. Am i right in saying that using web services adds some delay (millisecs) in request/response cycle ? (because MongoDB actually takes few milliseconds to complete the query)
2. Second Option is to use MongoDB's HTTP / REST Interface. That way i might avoid web services and directly query MongoDB. Here i need your opinion on,
   • Is there a way to query MongoDB between two Dates using HTTP/REST ?,
   • Is there a way to query MongoDB with '>' and '<' conditions using HTTP/REST ?,
   • How does it seem, accessing DB directly on Page.aspx with security point of view ?
3. Any other querying alternative OR optimizations for above schema?

My related question is here.

Regards.

Answer 1

MongoDB's native HTTP interface is not built for querying. You should continue to do what you are doing. In addition, your MongoDB servers should not be exposed publicly for security purposes and you should always go through a middle tier as you are currently doing.