139: Alex DeBrie - DynamoDB for Relational Database Diehards

Topics include:

• Does DynamoDB only make sense for things like your cache, or is it a good choice for a primary data store?
• An overview of the terminology used in DynamoDB and how the terminology compares to a relational database
• How primary keys work in DynamoDB
• What data types are available in DynamoDB
• How DynamoDB is a schemaless database
• Why it's important to understand your access patterns in advance with DynamoDB, unlike in a relational database
• Understanding why and how you usually have multiple record types in a single DynamoDB table
• What "index overloading" is in DynamoDB
• Understanding partition keys and sort keys
• How to structure your data in DynamoDB to make it possible to query related data, and how those queries work
• How secondary indexes work, allowing you to access the same data in different ways
• How to accommodate access patterns you didn't know about before you designed your schema
• When to flatten relationships vs. nest them
• Should you use DynamoDB if you aren't "web-scale"?
• How local development works with DynamoDB

Links:

• DynamoDB Homepage
• Alex's blog, loaded with great DynamoDB content
• The DynamoDB Book, Alex's recent book
• DynamoDB Guide

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