What is DynamoDB? How does it work? And what are the benefits of using it?
In the present scenario, web-based applications are growing rapidly. As an organization or developer, you'll create a web-based app's frontend and then you'll go with the backend. If you are designing an app for 1K or 5K users then it is okay to create a simple and normal database but what if you are planning to cover a marketplace of millions of users? And what if your user base will keep growing? Your app may also have terabytes (TB) of data. Will it be easy to manage the backend and a traditional database at that time? Here come the NoSQL databases or if I say the most fantastic NoSQL database - DynamoDB
There are several NoSQL databases available in the market including Redis, HBase, MongoDB, etc but DynamoDB is the most popular and most used database among these.
DynamoDB is a NoSQL database service by Amazon Web Service(AWS). Traditional SQL databases which were initially used, are not effective today because of continuous change in requirements, large data, and the type of data produced. Thus, DynamoDB has become the backbone for several companies no matter how big their user base and they are. Development with DynamoDB helps in implementing a scalable database. we can start from a small need and we can easily expand it in the future if needed without any extra hassle.
What is DynamoDB?
AWS DynamoDB is a non-relational and NoSQL database service provided by Amazon. It can serve any amount of users and can store any amount and type of data. Like other AWS services, DynamoDB is also easily scalable, you can scale up or down according to your need and this will not affect the performance. DynamoDB also provides in-memory caching, built-in security, and backup & restores.
With DynamoDB, it becomes easy to perform different types of tasks on the database. With a Primary key, you can easily create a table and there will be no need of a schema. It works as a simple API that can store and access your data and also can perform advanced retrieval tasks.
There are three fundamental units of DynamoDB:
- Table: Holds a set of items
- Attribute: Stores data without any further division
- Item: Holds a set of attributes
What are the benefits of using DynamoDB?
1. Performance and Scalability: When you grow as an organization then your user base also grows and obviously you need to scale up your database too. But it becomes difficult to scale a database that is already in use. DynamoDB can help you in this with its load balancing abilities as it has the ability to auto-scale by tracking the usage of your database.
Thus the database will adjust itself according to the traffic and users. There’s no limit on scaling, you can continuously extend your database. It also improves the performance of your web app and helps in reducing the cost as well.
2. Integration with the AWS Ecosystem: DynamoDB is an Amazon AWS service and it is easy to integrate it with other AWS services. You can easily host your web apps on EC2 and can use DynamoDB with it as a database along with Lambda. Also, you can export your data and examine it through Elastic MapReduce (EMR).
3. Fully-managed database service: DynamoDB is a fully managed AWS service and it saves the costs and effort of setting a new data server or operation. AWS takes care of all the things for you from hardware, network, and configuration. So you can simply focus on other things and development work.
4. Data Management: The data management is easy in DynamoDB as it automatically backup your data and saves it in the cloud. All the data is stored in SSD drivers and you can easily retrieve it when needed. Also, it is easy in DynamoDB to perform different queries on the database.
Conclusion
AWS DynamoDB is easy to use and more secure than any other database. It also offers high performance and auto scalability. So whether you are a large organization or a startup, DynamoDB can fulfill all your needs of a fantastic database service.