Hello @Ashley_Meadows well come to the community!
It is great that you want to utilize the strong features of MongoDB. As you mention you have a solid SQL background. To get the most out of an noSQL Setup, you need to change the way of thinking about schema design. Your first goal will no longer be to get the maximal normalized Schema, Denormalization is not bad, the requirement of your queries will drive your design. The story will start to think about a good schema design. In case you move the SQL normalized Data Model 1:1 to MongoDB you will not have much fun or benefit.
So in a first step I’d suggest to check out if you have a well fitting schema to utilize the MongoDB / noSQL advantages. If this is not the case, please do not worry about DBA issues and setup parameters - most likely you approach would not satisfy you without good data modelling.
That said, DBA and setup parameter should not be underestimated! As start you can try out a sample DB as free tier in MongoDB Altas. This would move away many DBA issues and you can focus on the data modeling. Please also check out MongoDB Compass. Compass is the GUI for MongoDB. You can visually explore your data, run ad hoc queries, interact with your data with full CRUD functionality, view and optimize your query performance and index suggestions.
Unfortunately I am not aware of a compiled list of DBA best practices (@Stennie_X, @chris, @Doug_Duncan, @Prasad_Saya do you know one this could be of general interest).
You can find further information on the Transitioning from Relational Databases to MongoDB in the linked blog post. Please note also the links at the bottom of this post, and the referenced migration guide .
Since you are new to MongoDB and noSQL I highly recommend to take some of great and free classes from the MongoDB Univerity:
This is just a sample which can get you started very well. In case this is going to be a mission critical project
I’d recommend getting Professional Advice to plan a deployment There are many considerations, and an experienced consultant can provide better advice with a more holistic understanding of your requirements. Some decisions affecting scalability (such as shard key selection) are more difficult to course correct once you have a significant amount of production data.
Hope this helps to start, while getting familiar and all time after, feel free to ask you questions here - we will try to help.
Cheers,
Michael