mongodb and sql for document versioning system

Question

I'm a computer engineer student and i've got a basically simple assignment but i'd like to make it a little more interesting :). Basically I have to create a simple multiuser, online document versioning system using Java or .NET. Because I'm more a .NET guy I'm gonna use ASP.NET or Silverlight (it's not yet decided).

Anyway the intersting part: I want to use MongoDB to store the documents (they can be virtually anything, video, audio, simple MSOffice files, plain text), each version of them and the related metadata (which library, folder they're in etc). I'd like to put anything else, like users, permissions etc.(the specs are not yet completed) in to an ordinary relational database. The question is what do you think about this? Do you think this makes any sense or I'm just trying to over complicate the whole thing? Would it be simpler to use only mongodb for everything or leave the nosql thingy entirely out of it? Is there any conventions for this kind of stuff? :)

BTW. under any other circumstences I'd use some free, battle tested solution for doc versioning, but I have to design and implement this myself, and I'm trying to do it at least a little unconventionally :).

Thanks for every comment:), any help appreciated:) Greets

Answer 1

If you were using something like Mongoid on Rails, this would be trivial. http://mongoid.org/docs/extras.html Look for Versioning. The ODM has it built in for you. I've yet to use Mongo in the .NET world, it's always been something like Raven, so I'm not sure if the libraries for it easily work like Mongoid does.

Mongo handles relational data as well. Things you want normalized (e.q. user records) can have references to other documents in the DB. And of course what ever magic document you want to store works as well.

Answer 2

Doing things unconventionnaly is usually a good way to discover new ways (better ways ?) so it's a good idea.

Using mongodb is a good idea too because of the schemaless property.

USing a relationa database for storing extra information is quite weird and will add more complexity without any advantage (IMO)