AWS Foundation

Amazon DynamoDB

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Agenda

1 NoSQL Databases
2 DynamoDB

3 Components
4 API

5 Provisioned Throughput
6 Partitions

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NoSQL Databases
• NoSQL (“not only” SQL) database is non-relational and largely distributed database.

• Provides high scalability and availability. Provides structured, semi-structured and non-structured
schemas.

• Types:
o Graph Database: A network database that uses edges and nodes to represent and store data. Neo4j, Titan etc.

o Key Value Store: Schema-less format, data stored as key value. Riak, DynamoDB.

o Document based: Data stored as JSON documents. MongoDB, CouchDB.

o Column based: Each storage block contains data from only one column. Cassandra, HBase.

• Why NoSQL??

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DynamoDB Concepts
• Fully managed NoSQL database.
• No Database Administration required.

• Scaling can be done at individual table level.

• DynamoDB automatically spreads the data and traffic for tables over a sufficient number of servers
to handle throughput and storage requirements.

• Data is stored on high performance SSDs and replicated across multiple AZs in a Region.

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Components
• Tables – Data are stored in tables.
• Items – Rows.
• Attributes – Columns.

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Demo & Lab
• AWS Management Console
• AWS CLI (Command Line Interface)
• Python Boto3

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JSON
• Introduction to JSON – Java Script Object Notation.

{
“EmpID” : 12345 ,
“EmpName” : “xyz” ,

“Address”
“cars” :[ :{
{“Building”
“name” :: “Toyota”
“Bldg-1” ,
, “models” : [ “Prius” , “Camry”
“Street” : ”40/1
,“Corolla”]Blvd”} , , “ZipCode” :
{654321
“name” : “Honda” , “models” : [ “Accord” , “Civic” ] } ,
{ “name” : “Jeep” }
} ]“Skills” : [ “AWS” , “Java” , “Oracle” ] ,

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JSON
• Previous Record
{
“EmpID” : 12345 ,
“EmpName” : “xyz” ,
“Address” : {
“Building” : “Bldg-1” ,
“Street” : “40/1 Blvd” ,
“ZipCode” : 654321 ,
},
“Skills” : [ “AWS” , “Java” , “Oracle” ] ,
“cars” : [
{ “name” : “Toyota” , “models” : [ “Prius” , “Camry” , “Corolla”] } ,
{ “name” : “Honda” , “models” : [ “Accord” , “Civic” ] } ,
{ “name” : “Jeep” }
]
}
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Attributes
• Primary Key – MUST be mentioned while creating a table. Unique for each item.
 Partition Key (Hash Attribute).
 Sort Key (Range Attribute).

P a b
K
11 P Q
22 R S

P-1

Partition-1 Partition-2 Partition-3

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Secondary Indexes
• Additional to primary keys for faster query performance.
• Types:
 Global Secondary Indexes (GSI)
 Local Secondary Indexes (LSI)
 Max 5 Global and Local secondary indexes per table.

• Indexes are updated automatically when base table is modified.

• While creating an index attributes which are to be copied should be mentioned. If nothing is
mentioned DynamoDB will copy the key attributes at the least.
• Index can be thought of a separate table sitting differently than the base table.

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Consistency Model
• DynamoDB data is replicated across multiple AZs in a Region.

• Eventual Consistency

• Strong Consistency

Partition-1 Partition-1 Partition-1

Replication-1 Replication-2

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Capacity Units
• While creating a table, throughput capacity can be provisioned in terms of READS and WRITES.
• Read Capacity Unit (RCU)
 Strong Consistent Read: One read per second, for item size up to 4KB
 Eventual Consistent Read: Two reads per second, for item size up to 4KB. OR, one read per second for item
size from 4KB+ to 8KB.

• Write Capacity Unit (WCU)

 One write per second, for item size up to 1KB.

• Limits (Soft) – Initial limits on provisioned throughput

 N. Virginia: 40000 RCU and 40000 WCU per table. 80000 RCU and WCU per account.
 Other: 10000 RCU and WCU per table. 20000 RCU and WCU per account.

• “ProvisionedThroughputExceededException”.

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Capacity Units - Example
- Application Requirement:
- 9338 Strongly Consistent reads per second.
- 5000 Writes per second
- Average Item Size – 10KB

- How much RCU/WCU should be provisioned while creating this table.

- RCU needed to read one item per second – 10KB/4KB = 3

- RCU needed to read 9338 items per second – 9338 * 3 = 28014 (Only
possible in N. Virginia region)

- WCU needed to write one item per second – 10KB/1KB = 10

- WCU needed to write 5000 items per second – 5000 * 10 = 50000. This is
not possible anywhere until limit is increased for the account with the
help of AWS support.

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Partitions
• Partition is a storage allocation for tables backed by SSDs.

• Data distribution using primary key only. In the case of composite primary key with partition and sort
key, data with same partition is always stored physically close together.

• Initial Partitions – A partition can support a maximum of 3000 RCU or 1000 WCU and a data capacity
of 10GB.

3000 RCU
1000 WCU
10 GB

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 Partitions - Example
Initial Partitions = (RCU/3000) + (WCU/1000)

• If the size per partition goes beyond 10GB or Provisioned throughputs are increased DynamoDB
doubles current no. of partitions.

• Throughput and data are evenly distributed across partitions.

• Rebalancing is done automatically by DynamoDB in the background, without any application impact
at all.

RCU = 8000 RCU=1600 RCU=1600 RCU=1600

WCU = 1500 WCU = 300 WCU = 300 WCU = 300

(8000/3000 = 3)
+
RCU=1600 RCU=1600
(1500/1000 = 2) WCU = 300 WCU = 300
=5
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DynamoDB API
• DynamoDB operations has to be done by provided APIs
 CreateTable – Create a new table. Can be used to create indexes as well.
 DescribeTable – Returns information about tables.
 ListTables – Returns all tables.
 UpdateTable - Modifies the settings of a table or its indexes, creates or remove new indexes on a
table, or modifies DynamoDB Streams settings for a table.
 DeleteTable – Removes table and its dependent objects.
 PutItem – Writes a single item, primary key must be specified.
 BatchWriteItem - Writes up to 25 items to a table.
 GetItem – Retrieves a single item with Primary Key.
 BatchGetItem – Retrieves up to 100 items from a table.
 Query - Retrieves all of the items that have a specific partition key.
 Scan - Retrieves all of the items in the specified table or index.
 UpdateItem - Modifies one or more attributes in an item when Primary Key is provided.
 DeleteItem – Deletes a single item with a specific Primary Key.

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