This is where the MongoDB guys are very sly. MongoDB works brilliantly if you are one developer on one desktop working on one app - you don't need a DBA or any other ops guys, you can just develop away to your little heart's content!

So they write their app and chuck it over the wall to ops, and by then it's a fait accompli, the ops guys know they will look very bad to management if they say "WTF is this?". So they try to make it more-or-less work, then come on HN to share war stories.