139: Alex DeBrie - DynamoDB for Relational Database Diehards

May 8, 2020

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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

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