Amazon Adds Managed NoSQL Database To AWS Cloud Services

Amazon Web Services (AWS) Wednesday launched what it's calling a fully managed NoSQL cloud database service dubbed Amazon DynamoDB, which enables scaling up and down as needed.

With DynamoDB, Amazon does all of the database heavy lifting in the cloud, said AWS CTO Werner Vogels.

"DynamoDB is the result of 15 years of learning in the areas of large scale non-relational databases and cloud services," Vogels wrote on his blog.

According to Vogels, DynamoDB offers "extremely fast" and predictable performance and scalability. DynamoDB tables can be created via the AWS Management Console and table's request capacity can be scaled up or down without incurring any downtime.

"Amazon DynamoDB is a fully managed NoSQL database service that provides fast performance at any scale," Vogels wrote. "Today's Web-based applications often encounter database scaling challenges when faced with growth in users, traffic, and data. With Amazon DynamoDB, developers scaling cloud-based applications can start small with just the capacity they need and then increase the request capacity of a given table as their app grows in popularity. Their tables can also grow without limits as their users store increasing amounts of data. Behind the scenes, Amazon DynamoDB automatically spreads the data and traffic for a table over a sufficient number of servers to meet the request capacity specified by the customer."

In AWS webcast Wednesday, Vogels said DynamoDB takes away the worries of hardware and software provisioning and configuration when it comes to databases. He said scaling databases has long been an "Achilles heel." DynamoDB takes out the complex problems like management and administration.

"We believe we've finally cracked the code of giving developers what they wanted," he said. Vogels later added: "We handle all the muck that happens behind the scenes."

According to AWS, DynamoDB offers fast, predictable performance at any scale, with single-digit milliseconds of latency; durability and high-availability by storing on SSDs and replicating synchronously across multiple AWS Availability Zones in an AWS Region; and scalability, which lets users grow DynamoDB tables from 1,000 writes per second to 100,000 using the AWS Management Console to accommodate bursts.

It also offers administration, as a fully managed service DynamoDB doesn't require hardware or software provisioning, setup and configuration, software patching, operating a reliable, distributed database cluster, or partitioning data over multiple instances as you scale.

The DynamoDB service is aimed at web companies that collect, store and process large amounts of data and experience heavy usage periods, which require rapid scaling.

"Amazon DynamoDB enables customers to offload the administrative burden of operating and scaling a highly available distributed database cluster while only paying a low variable price for the resources they consume," the company said.

DynamoDB is available now, AWS said. According to Amazon, new AWS users can use Amazon DynamoDB for free with 100 MB of free storage, five writes per second and 10 reads per second of ongoing throughput capacity. DynamoDB is available as pay per capacity as well, costing $0.01 per hour for every 10 unites of Write Capacity and $0.01 per hour for every 50 units of Read Capacity. Storage and data transfer costs will also apply, according to Amazon.

"It has removed great obstacles … Everybody can start using NoSQL tomorrow," Vogels said.