[mrerrormessage]

How much of this could be avoided if the application didn't use mongo? Needing to run a three-nice cluster out of the gate seems like a big part of the problem. Sure, you want backups and redundancy for any database, but there are situations where a MySQL or pg slave that can be switched on makes more sense financially, especially if load doesn't require a three-node cluster.

[giaour]

That was my first thought, too. If the author didn't insist on using mongo, he could have opted for an inexpensive RDS setup.