AWS Database Blog
Choosing the right number of shards for your large-scale Amazon DynamoDB table
As a general design best practice, you can optimize your use of Amazon DynamoDB throughput capacity by designing your application for uniform read and write activity across all logical partition keys in the table and its indexes. In doing so, you can prevent creating hot partitions that could consume a disproportionate amount of your table’s […]
Caching for performance with Amazon DocumentDB and Amazon ElastiCache
In tech, caching is ubiquitous. CPUs use L1, L2, and L3 caches, and mobile phones cache app data locally. Streaming services cache content on the edge, browsers cache images, and more. The same is true for databases. Imagine if, on a gaming site, every time a leaderboard was displayed, a query had to do a […]
Automating table mappings creation in AWS DMS
AWS Database Migration Service (AWS DMS) helps you migrate on-premises databases to AWS quickly and securely. It supports homogeneous migrations as well as heterogeneous migrations. The source database remains operational while the migration is running or being tested. Migration takes place using a DMS replication server, source, target endpoints, and migration tasks. If you are […]
Enabling SSL encrypted connections to Microsoft SQL Server using AWS Certificate Manager Private Certificate Authority
Organizations moving to secure their critical data worry about while it’s both at-rest and in transit. Relational databases are a common example of situations in which business-critical data must be secured. Microsoft SQL Server lets you secure the in-transit data using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption. This post reviews the process of enabling SSL encryption […]
Validating database objects after migration using AWS SCT and AWS DMS
Database migration can be a complicated task. It presents all the challenges of changing your software platform, understanding source data complexity, data loss checks, thoroughly testing existing functionality, comparing application performance, and validating your data. AWS provides several tools and services that provide a pre-migration checklist and migration assessments. You can use the AWS Schema […]
Using SPARQL explain to understand query execution in Amazon Neptune
Customers continue to want greater visibility and control over the services they use within AWS. When it comes to our database services, customer requests typically revolve around providing greater insights into the query optimization and processing within a given database. Database developers and administrators are mostly already familiar with the idea and use of database […]
Reducing Aurora PostgreSQL storage I/O costs
June 2023: For Aurora databases where IO is greater than 25% of your costs, check out this blog post and recent announcement to see if you can save money with Aurora I/O-Optimized. Cost reduction is one of the biggest drivers for many IT departments to explore migration of on-premises workloads to the cloud. This post […]
IAM role-based authentication to Amazon Aurora from serverless applications
January 2024: This post was reviewed and updated for accuracy. Storing user names and passwords directly in applications is not a best practice. Saving credentials as plaintext should never occur in a secure application. As a solution, AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) policies can assign permissions that determine who is allowed to manage Amazon […]
Building an AWS CloudFormation custom resource to manage Amazon RDS point-in-time recovery
Amazon RDS makes it easy to set up, operate, and scale a relational database in the cloud. It provides cost-efficient and resizable capacity while automating time-consuming administration tasks such as hardware provisioning, database setup, patching, and backups. It frees you to focus on your business logic and application features, leaving the heavy lifting to AWS. […]
Optimizing and tuning queries in Amazon RDS PostgreSQL based on native and external tools
January 2024: This post was reviewed and updated for accuracy. PostgreSQL is one of the most popular open-source relational database systems. The product of more than 30 years of development work, PostgreSQL has proven to be a highly reliable and robust database that can handle a large number of complicated data workloads. PostgreSQL is considered […]









