2019: The year in review for Amazon DynamoDB

Last updated: December 17, 2019

2019 has been another busy year for Amazon DynamoDB. We have released new and updated features that focus on making your experience with the service better than ever in terms of reliability, encryption, speed, scale, and flexibility.

The following 2019 releases are organized alphabetically by category and then by dated releases, with the most recent release at the top of each category. It can be challenging to keep track of a service’s changes over the course of a year, so use this handy, one-page post to catch up or remind yourself about what happened with DynamoDB in 2019. Let us know @DynamoDB if you have questions. (Note: We are publishing this post before the year ends, so we will update the post with any other launches that occur before the end of 2019.)

Adaptive capacity

• November 15: Amazon DynamoDB adaptive capacity now handles imbalanced workloads better by isolating frequently accessed items automatically
  DynamoDB adaptive capacity handles imbalanced workloads better by isolating frequently accessed items automatically. If your application drives disproportionately high traffic to one or more items, DynamoDB rebalances your partitions such that frequently accessed items do not reside on the same partition. This latest enhancement helps you maintain uninterrupted performance for your workloads.

• May 23: Amazon DynamoDB adaptive capacity is now instant
  DynamoDB applies adaptive capacity in real time in response to changing application traffic patterns, which helps you maintain uninterrupted performance indefinitely, even for imbalanced workloads. Instant adaptive capacity is on by default at no additional cost for all DynamoDB tables and global secondary indexes.

Backup and restore

• November 13: You now can configure table settings when you restore a table from your Amazon DynamoDB backups
  You can configure table settings when you restore a table from your DynamoDB backups. Specifically, you can exclude some or all of the local and global secondary indexes from being created with the restored table. You also can change the billing mode and provisioned capacity settings.

• April 4: AWS Backup is Now Available in the AWS Asia Pacific (Sydney) and EU (Frankfurt) Regions
  AWS Backup is a fully managed backup service that makes it easy to centralize and automate the backup of data across AWS services in the cloud as well as on premises. AWS Backup is now available in the AWS Asia Pacific (Sydney) and EU (Frankfurt) Regions.

• March 28: Amazon DynamoDB backup and restore is now available in AWS GovCloud (US)
  You can use DynamoDB backup and restore to create on-demand and continuous backups of your DynamoDB tables and then restore from these backups. DynamoDB backup and restore is now available in the AWS GovCloud (US) Regions.

• January 16: AWS Backup Integrates with Amazon DynamoDB for Centralized and Automated Backup Management
  AWS Backup centralizes and automates the backup and retention of your data across AWS services—including DynamoDB—in the cloud as well as on premises. With the consolidated view in the AWS Backup console, you can monitor backups, manage backup plans, and provide audit information to simplify the process of ensuring compliance for internal policies and external regulatory audits.

CloudWatch Contributor Insights for DynamoDB

• December 16:  Amazon CloudWatch Contributor Insights for Amazon DynamoDB (Preview) is now available in 15 additional AWS Regions
  Now you can use Amazon CloudWatch Contributor Insights for Amazon DynamoDB (Preview) in 15 additional AWS Regions around the world. Use CloudWatch Contributor Insights to better understand the top drivers of your application’s traffic and respond appropriately to unsuccessful requests.
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• November 26: New Amazon CloudWatch Contributor Insights for Amazon DynamoDB (Preview) helps you identify frequently accessed keys and database traffic trends
  Amazon CloudWatch Contributor Insights for Amazon DynamoDB (Preview) is a new diagnostic tool that provides an at-a-glance view of the traffic trends of your DynamoDB table and helps you identify the most frequently accessed keys. Now, you can monitor a table’s item access patterns continuously and also use CloudWatch Contributor Insights to provide graphs and visualizations of the table’s activity. You can use this information to better understand the top drivers of your application’s traffic and respond appropriately to unsuccessful requests.

DynamoDB Accelerator (DAX)

• November 13: Amazon DynamoDB Accelerator (DAX) is now available in the China (Ningxia) Region, Operated by NWCD
  DAX is available in the China (Ningxia) Region, operated by NWCD. You can create DAX clusters in this AWS Region for your DynamoDB applications that require microsecond response times.

• November 11: Amazon DynamoDB Accelerator (DAX) is now available in the EU (London) and EU (Paris) Regions
  DAX is available in the EU (London) and EU (Paris) Regions. You can create DAX clusters using Amazon EC2 R4 and T2 instance types in these AWS Regions for applications that require microsecond latency.

• February 20: Amazon DynamoDB Accelerator (DAX) expands to the EU (Frankfurt) Region, and adds support for R4 instance types in the US West (N. California) Region
  DAX is available in the EU (Frankfurt) Region. You can create DAX clusters using Amazon EC2 R4 and T2 instance types in the Region for applications that require microsecond latency.

• February 14: Amazon DynamoDB Accelerator (DAX) adds DynamoDB transactions support for Python and .NET
  DAX is API compatible with the DynamoDB transactions SDKs for Python and .NET. As a result, you can integrate your DynamoDB applications written in Python and .NET with DAX without making changes to your existing application logic.

DynamoDB endpoints

• May 28: Amazon DynamoDB supports FIPS 140-2 validated endpoints in the Canada (Central) Region
  DynamoDB supports Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) 140-2 validated endpoints in the Canada (Central) Region, making it easier for you to use DynamoDB for regulated workloads. These endpoints terminate TLS sessions using a FIPS 140-2 validated cryptographic software module.

• April 25: AWS specifies the IP address ranges for Amazon DynamoDB endpoints
  AWS specifies the IP address ranges for Amazon DynamoDB endpoints. You can use these IP address ranges in your routing and firewall policies to control outbound application traffic. If you have an application that uses DynamoDB and need to lock down outbound access to the DynamoDB endpoints, you can use these IP address ranges.

DynamoDB local

• February 3: Amazon DynamoDB Local Adds Support for Transactional APIs, On-Demand Capacity Mode, and 20 GSIs
  DynamoDB local, the downloadable version of DynamoDB, supports transactional APIs, on-demand capacity mode, and as many as 20 global secondary indexes per table. In addition, DynamoDB local now tracks and can return the capacity units consumed by your queries.

Encryption

• November 26: Encrypt your Amazon DynamoDB data by using your own encryption keys
  You can use customer managed keys, which means you can have full control over how you encrypt and manage the security of your DynamoDB data.

• September 6: Amazon DynamoDB encryption at rest is now available in the AWS China (Beijing) Region, operated by Sinnet, and the AWS China (Ningxia) Region, operated by NWCD
  DynamoDB encryption at rest is now available in the AWS China (Beijing) Region, operated by Sinnet, and the AWS China (Ningxia) Region, operated by NWCD. DynamoDB has encrypted all existing tables that were previously unencrypted by using a default AWS owned key. When creating a new table, you can now use either the default AWS owned KMS Key or an AWS managed KMS Key.

• March 29: Amazon DynamoDB encryption at rest is now available in the AWS GovCloud (US) Regions
  Because of the flexible DynamoDB data model, enterprise-ready features, and industry-leading service level agreement, customers are increasingly moving sensitive workloads to DynamoDB such as financial and healthcare data, whose compliance regulations mandate data encryption. DynamoDB encryption at rest is available in the AWS GovCloud (US) Regions.

• February 28: Amazon DynamoDB adds support for switching encryption keys to encrypt your data at rest
  With DynamoDB, you can use the default encryption, the AWS owned KMS customer managed key (KMS Key), or the AWS managed KMS Key to encrypt all your data. And DynamoDB has added support to enable you to switch encryption keys, between the AWS owned KMS Key and AWS managed KMS Key, without having to make any code or application modifications to encrypt your data.

Global secondary indexes

• November 13: You can now create 20 global secondary indexes and have 100 projected index attributes per Amazon DynamoDB table in AWS GovCloud (US)
  You can create 20 global secondary indexes per DynamoDB table in AWS GovCloud (US). In addition, you can have 100 projected index attributes for both global secondary indexes and local secondary indexes when you specify the ProjectionType of INCLUDE. You still can specify the ProjectionType of ALL to project all attributes from the source table, even if the table has more than 100 attributes.

• July 2: Amazon DynamoDB now supports deleting a global secondary index before it finishes building
  You can use the DynamoDB console or the UpdateTable API/CLI to delete a global secondary index even as it’s being created. This can help you save time if you no longer want a global secondary index or if you want a new global secondary index with different attribute projections.

Global tables

• November 21: You now can enhance the availability of your existing Amazon DynamoDB tables by adding global replicas
  You can benefit from the 99.999% DynamoDB availability SLA more easily by adding global table replicas to your existing, single-Region tables with a few clicks in the DynamoDB console.

• April 1: Amazon DynamoDB drops the price of global tables by eliminating associated charges for DynamoDB Streams
  DynamoDB reduced the price of global tables by eliminating associated charges for DynamoDB Streams. You are no longer billed for streams resources used by global tables for replicating changes from one replica table to all other replicas.

Monitoring

• August 5: Amazon DynamoDB now helps you monitor as you approach your account limits
  DynamoDB now publishes account metrics to help you monitor capacity consumption against your account limits. You can now alarm as your capacity approaches your account limits and proactively request limit increases, helping ensure your DynamoDB tables are always available.

NoSQL Workbench

• November 12: NoSQL Workbench for Amazon DynamoDB adds support for DynamoDB local
  NoSQL Workbench for Amazon DynamoDB is a client-side application that helps developers build scalable, high-performance data models and simplifies query development and testing. You can connect to your DynamoDB local instance, the downloadable version of DynamoDB, directly from NoSQL Workbench.

• September 16: Introducing NoSQL Workbench for Amazon DynamoDB — Now in Preview
  NoSQL Workbench for DynamoDB helps developers build scalable, high-performance data models and simplify query development and testing. NoSQL Workbench is a free, client-side application available for Windows and macOS.

Tagging

• June 11: Amazon DynamoDB now supports tagging tables when you create them in the AWS GovCloud (US) Regions
  We extended tagging support to the AWS GovCloud (US) Regions. You can use tags to categorize tables based on their purpose, owner, environment, and other criteria.

• April 26: Now you can tag Amazon DynamoDB tables when you create them
  You can now tag DynamoDB tables when you create them. Tags are labels you can attach to AWS resources to make them easier to manage, search, and filter.

Training

• June 6: New Digital Course on edX for Building Applications That Use Amazon DynamoDB
  AWS Training and Certification has launched Amazon DynamoDB: Building NoSQL Database–Driven Applications, a new self-paced, digital course available exclusively on edX. Designed by AWS experts, this course helps you develop the skills you need for building applications that use DynamoDB.

Transactions

• November 21: AWS AppSync adds server-side Caching and DynamoDB transactions support for GraphQL APIs
  AWS AppSync supports transactions with TransactGetItems and TransactWriteItems operations for DynamoDB data sources and resolvers. DynamoDB transactions simplify the developer experience of making coordinated, all-or-nothing changes to multiple items both within and across tables. Transactions provide atomicity, consistency, isolation, and durability (ACID) in DynamoDB, helping you to maintain data correctness in your applications.

• October 1: DynamoDBMapper now supports optimistic locking for Amazon DynamoDB transactional API calls
  DynamoDBMapper, the higher-level Java interface for DynamoDB, helps developers ensure that transactional writes are being performed on the most recent version of an item by using optimistic locking.

• July 1: Amazon DynamoDB now supports up to 25 unique items and 4 MB of data per transactional request in the AWS China (Beijing) Region, Operated by Sinnet, and the AWS China (Ningxia) Region, Operated by NWCD
  DynamoDB supports up to 25 unique items and 4 MB of data per transactional request in the AWS China (Beijing) Region, Operated by Sinnet, and the AWS China (Ningxia) Region, Operated by NWCD.

• June 24: Amazon DynamoDB now supports up to 25 unique items and 4 MB of data per transactional request
  DynamoDB supports up to 25 unique items and 4 MB of data per transactional request.

• June 11: Amazon DynamoDB on-demand and transactions now available in the AWS GovCloud (US) Regions
  DynamoDB on-demand capacity mode and transactions are available in the AWS GovCloud (US) Regions.

• May 14: Amazon DynamoDB transactions are now available in the Asia Pacific (Osaka-Local) Region
  DynamoDB transactions are available in the Asia Pacific (Osaka-Local) Region.

• April 26: DynamoDBMapper now supports Amazon DynamoDB transactional API calls
  DynamoDBMapper supports DynamoDB transactional API calls, enabling developers who use DynamoDBMapper to simplify their code when making coordinated, all-or-nothing changes to multiple items both within and across DynamoDB tables.

About the Author

Craig Liebendorfer is a senior technical editor at Amazon Web Services. He also manages @DynamoDB on Twitter.