AWS DynamoDB Complete Guide: Architecture, Indexing & Performance Optimization
Introduction Amazon DynamoDB is a fully managed NoSQL database service that provides fast and predictable performance with seamless scalability. This comprehensive guide explores DynamoDB’s architecture, data structures, indexing strategies, and advanced optimization techniques to achieve maximum performance for your applications. DynamoDB Architecture Overview Core Architecture Components graph TB subgraph "DynamoDB Service Architecture" APP[Application Layer] SDK[AWS SDK] API[DynamoDB API] subgraph "DynamoDB Core" AUTH[Authentication & Authorization] ROUTER[Request Router] METADATA[Metadata Service] subgraph "Storage Layer" PARTITION1[Partition 1] PARTITION2[Partition 2] PARTITION3[Partition 3] PARTITIONN[Partition N] end subgraph "Index Layer" GSI[Global Secondary Indexes] LSI[Local Secondary Indexes] end end subgraph "Infrastructure" SSD[SSD Storage] REPLICATION[Multi-AZ Replication] BACKUP[Automated Backups] end end APP --> SDK SDK --> API API --> AUTH AUTH --> ROUTER ROUTER --> METADATA ROUTER --> PARTITION1 ROUTER --> PARTITION2 ROUTER --> PARTITION3 ROUTER --> PARTITIONN PARTITION1 --> SSD PARTITION2 --> SSD PARTITION3 --> SSD PARTITIONN --> SSD SSD --> REPLICATION REPLICATION --> BACKUP DynamoDB vs Traditional Databases Feature DynamoDB Traditional RDBMS MongoDB Data Model Key-Value & Document Relational Tables Document Schema Schema-less Fixed Schema Flexible Schema Scaling Horizontal (Auto) Vertical (Manual) Horizontal (Manual) Consistency Eventually Consistent ACID Transactions Configurable Query Language PartiQL & APIs SQL MongoDB Query Language Performance Single-digit millisecond Variable Variable Management Fully Managed Self-Managed Self/Managed Options DynamoDB Data Structures Primary Key Structures DynamoDB supports two types of primary keys: