DynamoDB APIs

• APIs facilitate programmatic interaction with DynamoDB.
• They enable the management of data within DynamoDB tables.
• Applications use simple API operations to interact with DynamoDB.

High-Level Operations

• Control Plane
• Data Plane
• DynamoDB Streams APIs
• Transactions

DynamoDB Control Plane

• Manages administrative tasks for tables, indexes, and configurations.
• Used for provisioning, scaling, security, monitoring, and backup.
• APIs include CreateTable, UpdateTable, DeleteTable, UpdateItem, DescribeTable, ListTables, etc.
• Indirect control over data through configuration.
• Not applicable for atomicity; focuses on administrative tasks.
• Configurations impact consistency levels (eventual vs. strong).
• Higher latency due to provisioning and configuration tasks.
• Secured via IAM policies to manage access to administrative actions.
• Does not directly access or modify data.
• Configures scaling settings, such as auto-scaling for throughput.
• Not applicable to real-time processing.
• Involves creating tables, modifying provisioned capacity, changing key schema, and managing IAM roles.

DynamoDB Data Plane

• Involves operations on actual data like CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete).
• Used for handling data retrieval, updates, and deletions.
• APIs include GetItem, PutItem, UpdateItem, DeleteItem, BatchGetItem, BatchWriteItem, etc.
• Directly manipulates and retrieves data items in tables.
• Not atomic unless wrapped in a transaction.
• Read and write consistency depends on the operation's configuration.
• Provides low latency for real-time data operations.
• Secured by IAM policies that govern access to data and CRUD operations.
• Direct access to data for reading and writing.
• Scalable based on table capacity or on-demand mode.
• Supports real-time CRUD operations on data.
• Involves inserting, updating, and retrieving data items from tables.

DynamoDB Streams APIs

• Captures changes to items in a DynamoDB table for application processing.
• Used for real-time event capturing for downstream processing (e.g., analytics, triggers).
• APIs include DescribeStream, GetShardIterator, GetRecords, etc.
• Captures data changes as events but does not directly modify data.
• Not atomic; captures changes over time in an event-driven manner.
• Stream data is eventually consistent, capturing changes after they occur.
• Provides low latency for capturing changes as they happen.
• Secured via IAM for access to Streams, monitoring, and reading records.
• Accesses changes in data captured by DynamoDB Streams but does not modify data.
• Scalable, depending on the volume of data changes captured in streams.
• Provides real-time change data capture for downstream systems like Lambda or analytics.
• Involves streaming changes to items for event-driven processing, such as notifying users of updates.

DynamoDB Transactions

• Executes multiple operations (CRUD) in a single, ACID-compliant transaction.
• Ensures atomicity, consistency, isolation, and durability (ACID) for complex operations.
• APIs include TransactGetItems and TransactWriteItems.
• Provides a way to perform multiple operations on items, ensuring all succeed or fail together.
• Atomic across multiple operations within a single transaction scope.
• Strong consistency is maintained within the transaction.
• Coordination adds overhead, but latency is low within the transaction.
• Secured via IAM policies to grant permissions for transaction-related actions.
• Allows access and modification of data in a transaction, ensuring consistency across all operations.
• Scalable, but transactions are limited to 25 items or 4 MB of data.
• Not for real-time processing but ensures consistency of data changes within a transaction.
• Involves transacting multiple operations in one request, like inserting and updating items, ensuring all are completed or none.

Key Differences

• The Control Plane manages infrastructure and configuration, while the Data Plane handles actual data operations.
• DynamoDB Streams captures and processes real-time changes without guaranteeing transactional consistency, while Transactions provide atomic operations across multiple items, ensuring ACID properties.
• DynamoDB Streams is designed for real-time change data capture for scenarios like real-time analytics or triggering workflows.
• DynamoDB Transactions allow for complex, consistent operations on multiple items, preserving data integrity, but are not real-time.

DynamoDB APIs enable programmatic interaction with the database. Allowing applications to manage data within DynamoDB tables through simple operations. The APIs are categorized into control plane, data plane, DynamoDB Streams, and Transactions.