Author: Esteban Serna Parra

Amazon DynamoDB has announced support for up to 8 attributes in composite keys for Global Secondary Indexes (GSIs). Now, you can specify up to four partition keys and four sort keys to identify items as part of a GSI, allowing you to query data at scale across multiple dimensions. In this post we show you how to design similar data models more efficiently using Global Secondary Indexes with the additional attribute support in composite keys and provide examples of DynamoDB data models with reduced complexity.

In this post, we show how you can use the Database Modernizer workshop to accelerate your database modernization journey from MySQL to Amazon DynamoDB. Traditional approaches to migrating from relational databases to NoSQL solutions like DynamoDB can take several months, requiring extensive expertise in data modeling, application refactoring, and migration strategies. The Database Modernizer workshop, which can be scheduled by your account team as part of the Amazon DynamoDB Immersion Day program, uses AI to help you complete database modernization projects in days instead of months.

Amazon DynamoDB delivers consistent single-digit millisecond performance at any scale, making it ideal for mission-critical workloads. However, as with any distributed system, a small percentage of requests may experience significantly longer response times than the average. This phenomenon, known as tail latency, refers to these slower outliers that can be seen by looking at metrics such as the 99th or 99.9th percentile of response times. In this post, we explore how Global Payments Inc. (GPN) reduced their tail latency by 30% using request hedging. We review the technical details and challenges they faced, providing insights into how you can optimize your own latency-sensitive applications. In a next post we’ll share detailed implementation examples.

When getting started with DynamoDB, one of the first decisions you will make is choosing between two throughput modes: on-demand and provisioned. On-demand mode is the default and recommended throughput option because it simplifies building modern, serverless applications that can start small and scale to millions of requests per second. However, choosing the right throughput strategy requires evaluating your operational needs, development velocity, and application characteristics, with cost being a key consideration. In this post, we examine both throughput modes in detail, exploring their characteristics, strengths, and ideal use cases.

In this post, we examine the realities behind common myths about DynamoDB on-demand capacity mode across three key areas: cost implications and efficiency, operational overhead and management, and performance considerations. We provide practical guidance to help you make informed decisions about throughput management.

August 2025: This post was reviewed and updated for accuracy. Amazon DynamoDB is a serverless, NoSQL, fully managed database service that delivers single-digit millisecond latency at any scale. AWS recently announced the general availability of attribute-based access control (ABAC) for Amazon DynamoDB. ABAC is an authorization strategy that defines permissions based on attributes. In AWS, […]

Amazon DynamoDB is a serverless, NoSQL, fully-managed database service that delivers single-digit millisecond latency at any scale. Customers increasingly use workload isolation strategies to minimize security threats and to ease the complexity of compliance demands for their DynamoDB-backed workloads. Implementing workload isolation strategies often requires cross-account and cross-Region access to DynamoDB resources using IAM identity-based policies, which […]

We are excited to announce a new feature in Amazon DynamoDB that enhances the developer experience by simplifying the handling of ConditionalCheckFailedException. The new ReturnValuesOnConditionCheckFailure parameter for single write operations lets you return a copy of an item as it was during a failed write attempt, reducing the need for a read request if you want to investigate […]