Learn in detail about how to use DynamoDB

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DynamoDB is a beautiful piece of technology. This module covers it in depth. You will learn what DynamoDB is, what it can do, and how to use it. You will learn about table creation and go into the details of security and monitoring. Additionally, you will learn how to manage access control in DynamoDB and how to monitor the usage.

After this module, you will become confident in using DynamoDB and have the know-how to avoid rookie mistakes people make while using this technology. No matter how familiar you are with AWS technologies, this module has something for you. For the beginner, this module gives a nice flavor of AWS technologies. And for advanced practitioners, this module provides a definitive guide to DynamoDB and related technologies.

DynamoDB Deep Dive: NoSQL for Software Engineers

DynamoDB uses consistent hashing to save data across multiple servers. The load is balanced across servers by assigning the various items to different servers based on their *partition key*. Now, it becomes important to have *partition Keys* that are uniformly random. If the *partition Key* is not uniformly distributed, all the load may go to a particular subset of servers. This will slow down the database, as we will be bound by the response time of a few servers.

A way of looking at this would be via the analogy of a road. Suppose we have an eight-lane highway. Hypothetically, let's assume that the traffic on the highway is distributed based on the age of the drivers. All drivers above 18 years travel by lane 1 and the rest of the drivers are divided across the other lanes.

This is an extreme example, as there will not be many drivers below the official driving age. We can assume that there will be congestion on lane 1, while all the other lanes will be empty.

Now, over here, our partition key was "is_driver_age_less_than_18", which was false for most of the drivers. This is a bad partition key and will cost us in performance and money.

A better partition key would have been the driving license number of the driver. Most of the driving license numbers are uniformly distributed. Thus the cars would go to the proper lanes uniformly.

Let's see how the items are saved in the table.

Before We Begin

Welcome!

What is DynamoDB?

Creating Tables

Creating Items

Reading Data

Secondary Index

Monitoring

Access Management

DynamoDB Best Practices

Conclusion

Understanding Partitions