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Amazon DynamoDB

Score8.6 out of 10

204 Reviews and Ratings

What is Amazon DynamoDB?

Amazon DynamoDB is a cloud-native, NoSQL, serverless database service.

Media

Amazon DynamoDB in the AWS Console

Top Performing Features

  • Deployment model flexibility

    Can be deployed on-premise or in the cloud.

    Category average: 8.9

  • Availability

    Availability is the probability that the NoSQL database will be available to preform its function when called upon.

    Category average: 8.9

  • Scalability

    NoSQL databases are inherently more stable than relational databases and have built-in support for replication and partitioning of data to support scalability.

    Category average: 9.4

Areas for Improvement

  • Security

    Security features include authentication against external security mechanisms liker LDAP, Windows Active Directory, and authorization or privilege management. Some NoSQL databases also support encryption.

    Category average: 8.9

  • Concurrency

    Concurrency is the ability for multiple processes to access or change shared data simultaneously. The greater the number of concurrent user processes that can execute without blocking each other, the greater the concurrency of the database system.

    Category average: 9

  • Data model flexibility

    NoSQL databases do not rely on rely on tables, columns, rows, or schemas to organize and retrieve data, but use use more flexible data models to accommodate the large volume and variety of data being generated by modern applications.

    Category average: 9

DynamoDB CAN be great!

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

AWS DynamoDB allows our company to easily access a no SQL database without the hassle of maintaining it ourselves. Service discovery, networking, and IAM are all handled natively, which makes management a breeze. We access the DB from various services in the cloud and externally. The speed and reliability have exceeded expectations.

Pros

  • Easy hashing.
  • Guaranteed response times.
  • Easy provisioning.

Cons

  • Query console.
  • Usage metrics.
  • ETL

Return on Investment

  • In some cases, it invited unnecessary complexity.
  • Can become really expensive for high traffic applications.
  • High availability and performance.

Other Software Used

Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS), PostgreSQL

DynamoDB from a service providers perspective

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Dynamo DB is my go-to option when requirements are for NoSQL DB that can scale very fast and have the options of global tables that can be used to support bigger infrastructures with key-value storage. The best thing is that it is a managed service so there is not a lot of overhead management required to keep it up to date.

Pros

  • Scaling
  • Global tables feature
  • High performance
  • Integration with other AWS services

Cons

  • Cost can be lower.
  • Complexity of working with global tables.
  • Schema design challenges

Return on Investment

  • Definitely, less management time
  • Less issues with DB performance
  • The costs are a little on the upper side compared to alternatives, but its a managed service so it adds up.

Alternatives Considered

Amazon Aurora, AWS Security Hub and AWS Systems Manager

Other Software Used

Amazon CloudFront, AWS Control Tower, AWS IAM Identity Center

Best Database in Market!

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use DynamoDB as it is made to run high-performance applications at any size. As it offers offers practically infinite storage and is adaptable, we use it on daily basis. It can manage millions of inquiries per second and supports high-traffic. It is super cost effective. We also use it for variety of applications. It is highly recommended by us.

Pros

  • To manage varying workloads, it enables users to increase capacity as necessary and decrease it as needed.
  • Users can take advantage of its auto-scaling, in-memory caching, and backup without paying for the services of a database administrator.
  • We can use it for low scale operations.

Cons

  • I would say a better user interface
  • Better data management
  • Scan operations should be more efficient

Return on Investment

  • Businesses may only pay for the services they actually use thanks to DynamoDB's usage-based pricing approach.
  • AWS handles hardware provisioning, data recovery, fault tolerance, patching, and database upgrades for DynamoDB since it is a fully managed database service.
  • DynamoDB differs from conventional relational databases in terms of its data model, which might be difficult for developers accustomed to dealing with SQL-based systems.

Alternatives Considered

Apache Cassandra

Other Software Used

Apache Cassandra

DynamoDB is fast, secure and easy to use.

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Since this is a NoSQL DB that is able to sustain dingle-digit millisecond response times, it is very useful to implement architectures with delightful responsive UX to all our customers. Specific use cases are around: eCommerce carts where orders' documents are being assembled in DynamoDB before going to next steps of the purchasing process; multi-user interactive interfaces can benefit from the fast response to update dashboards, and interactions; and some public signage usages for arrival/departure boards can also be used for the display part of the process.

Pros

  • Fast response
  • Availability
  • Security on rest
  • Ease of use

Cons

  • Cost model may not be easy to control and may lead to higher costs if not carefully planned
  • Indexing may be a cost culprit when not planned, because it's not included on the data costs
  • The Query Language may not fulfill everybody's expectations, as it has less features than those of competitors.

Return on Investment

  • The use of DynamoDb has helped to make our products and solutions faster and more responsive to the users. This, in turn, increments the number of transactions that can be put in eCommerce solutions.
  • Having DynamoDB as part of the architecture for interoperability solutions along with SQS gives us the possibility to create B2B solutions with high resiliency.
  • Creating detailed plans on the usage of this cloud component has helped us to control and minimize costs in the developed solutions.

Alternatives Considered

MongoDB

Other Software Used

Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS), AWS Lambda

AWS DynamoDB use cases.

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We used DynamoDB both alone and in combination with AWS lambda functions. We used DynamoDB tables to store client data and combined them with DynamoDB streams to trigger lambda functions every time the table changed. This allowed us to run functions synchronously. Another use case was to run lambda functions at a specified UTC time zone, which was again stored in DynamoDB tables.

Pros

  • Storing of Data.
  • Running lambda functions to synchronously run jobs.
  • Run asynchronous jobs.
  • Store inconsistent data.

Cons

  • It is hard to combine them with lambda functions if the job to be run will take longer than 30 seconds.
  • It has some inconsistent behavior when fargate containers are involved.

Return on Investment

  • DynamoDB has been very effective for cost savings.
  • Easy to combine with other AWS services, which is both easy to develop and maintain.
  • Scalability is not an issue.
  • Well-illustrated metrics.

Alternatives Considered

Amazon Redshift and Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)

Other Software Used

AWS Lambda, AngularJS, Oracle Java Platform, Micro Edition