This section of the AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Professional learning path introduces you to the AWS database services relevant to the SAP-C02 exam. We then understand the service options available and learn how to select and apply AWS database services to meet specific design scenarios relevant to the AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Professional exam.
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Learning Objectives
- Understand the various database services that can be used when building cloud solutions on AWS
- Learn how to build databases using Amazon RDS, DynamoDB, Redshift, DocumentDB, Keyspaces, and QLDB
- Learn how to create ElastiCache and Neptune clusters
- Understand which AWS database service to choose based on your requirements
- Discover how to use automation to deploy databases in AWS
- Learn about data lakes and how to build a data lake in AWS
Amazon DynamoDB is a fully managed, serverless, NoSQL database service. What does that mean? Well, let's break this definition down into parts.
By "fully managed," we mean that the DynamoDB service is responsible for provisioning and maintaining the underlying infrastructure. There's no database administration required on your end, no servers to provision or retire, no operating system and database patching, no sharding, no replication, and no backup complexity. All of this is handled for you by AWS.
Similarly, what we mean by the phrase “serverless” is that all server and server administration is completely invisible to the user. There are still servers that run DynamoDB behind the scenes, but they are not your responsibility. AWS takes care of them. All you are responsible for is your data and how you model that data.
To model your data effectively, it helps to understand the type of database you’re using. DynamoDB is a NoSQL database. NoSQL databases, aka “not-only SQL” databases, store data differently than relational databases, depending on their data model. The most common NoSQL data models are key-value, document, graph, and wide-column databases. Amazon DynamoDB is most commonly used as a key-value database, although it does support document access patterns as well.
So what is a key-value database?
Well, it’s a collection of key-value pairs, where the key is a unique identifier for the particular item or record. You access your data based on these keys. Generally, to provide quick access to data, these key-value stores need to be highly partitionable and scalable. Two things which DynamoDB excels at.
That’s it for this one - see you in the next one.
Danny has over 20 years of IT experience as a software developer, cloud engineer, and technical trainer. After attending a conference on cloud computing in 2009, he knew he wanted to build his career around what was still a very new, emerging technology at the time — and share this transformational knowledge with others. He has spoken to IT professional audiences at local, regional, and national user groups and conferences. He has delivered in-person classroom and virtual training, interactive webinars, and authored video training courses covering many different technologies, including Amazon Web Services. He currently has six active AWS certifications, including certifications at the Professional and Specialty level.