DynamoDB
The most opinionated database in the modern stack. You give up query flexibility at design time in exchange for guaranteed single-digit millisecond performance at any scale. Understanding that trade is the entire mental model.
Core Concepts & Data Model
Tables, items, attributes, primary keys, and partitions — the vocabulary you must internalize before anything else.
Primary Key & Single-Table Design
The most important skill in DynamoDB. Every other decision flows from your key design.
Indexes (GSI & LSI)
The second most important design decision — how to query data beyond the primary key.
Reading & Writing Data
GetItem, Query, Scan, PutItem, UpdateItem — operations, consistency models, and condition expressions.
Capacity, Billing & Transactions
RCU/WCU, provisioned vs on-demand, auto scaling, and atomic multi-item operations.
Streams & Global Tables
Change data capture, event-driven patterns, and multi-region active-active replication.
Operations, Security & Limits
IAM fine-grained access, encryption, monitoring, DAX caching, and the limits you must know.
Why DynamoDB?
DynamoDB makes a deliberate trade: you define your access patterns upfront, and DynamoDB guarantees performance for those patterns forever. Queries outside your access patterns are expensive or impossible. This is not a limitation — it is the design.
- ✓Single-digit millisecond latency at any scale — 1 request or 1 million per second.
- ✓Fully managed — no servers, no patching, no cluster management. Multi-AZ by default.
- ✓On-demand capacity — pay per request with instant scaling, or provision for predictable costs.
- ✓Global Tables — multi-region active-active replication with last-writer-wins conflict resolution.
- ✓Native serverless integration — Lambda, API Gateway, AppSync, Kinesis, S3.