Amazon DynamoDB has launched a new functionality to pre-scale tables and indexes in the AWS GovCloud (US) regions, marking a significant advancement in organizations’ ability to manage traffic spikes seamlessly. The new feature includes “warm throughput” values, allowing users to assess the immediate read and write capacity their tables can handle and proactively increase it prior to high-traffic events if needed.
Preparation for Peak Traffic Events
DynamoDB, known for its automatic scaling capabilities to support workloads of any size, now offers a more robust solution for handling sudden traffic increases, such as product launches or promotional events. The “warm throughput” values provide a clear benchmark of the operations a table can handle in its current state. If traffic is expected to exceed this capacity, businesses can choose to pre-scale the table, ensuring the system responds instantly to demand.
For example, a table with a current read capacity of 12,000 units per second can be pre-scaled to 100,000 units for an upcoming event, ensuring a seamless transition and consistent performance during peaks.
Features and Associated Costs
- No additional cost accessibility: The “warm throughput” values are available for all tables and indexes in provisioned or on-demand mode, free of additional charges.
- Pre-scaling with pay-as-you-go costs: Organizations that choose to pre-scale their tables will incur a one-time cost based on the number of additional units required. For example, increasing the read capacity by 88,000 units in the US East (N. Virginia) region would cost approximately $11.44.
Key Benefits of Pre-scaling
- Proactive Scalability: Pre-scaling allows businesses to avoid delays in response times, which is crucial for events where downtime could significantly affect customer experience.
- Flexibility for Global Loads: In global tables, all replicas can be pre-scaled to ensure consistent performance across multiple regions.
Comprehensive Support for Dynamic Workloads
DynamoDB continues to provide advanced solutions for distributed and scalable workloads. In addition to pre-scaling, DynamoDB’s capabilities include continuous backups, integration with services like AWS Glue and Kinesis, and support for cost-optimized table classes such as Standard and Standard-IA.
Driving Innovation in the Cloud
This advancement reaffirms AWS’s commitment to innovation and flexibility, providing advanced tools for businesses of any size to meet the most demanding traffic requirements. With this development, DynamoDB positions itself as a leading solution for NoSQL databases in mission-critical scenarios.