AWS Certified Solutions Architect – ProfessionalDesign for New SolutionsMedium
A global e-commerce company is launching a new product catalog service. The service needs to handle millions of requests per second, with sub-10ms latency for read operations, and must be highly available and globally consistent across multiple AWS Regions. The data model is flexible and evolving, with frequent schema changes expected. Which database service is most appropriate for this scenario?
- AAmazon Aurora Global Database.
- BAmazon DynamoDB Global Tables.
- CAmazon RDS for PostgreSQL with read replicas.
- DAmazon Redshift.
Show answer & explanationAnswer & explanation
Correct answer: B. Amazon DynamoDB Global Tables.
DynamoDB Global Tables provide active-active, multi-Region replication for NoSQL data, offering single-digit millisecond latency at any scale and high availability. Its schema-less nature (document/key-value) perfectly accommodates flexible and evolving data models, which is a key requirement for the product catalog.
Why the other options are wrong
- A. Aurora Global Database is a relational database. While it offers global distribution and low latency, its relational nature is less flexible for evolving schemas compared to NoSQL, and it's primarily designed for transactional workloads where ACID compliance is paramount, not the flexible schema requirement.
- C. RDS with read replicas provides high availability within a region and read scaling but does not offer active-active write capability across multiple regions or the schema flexibility required for an evolving data model. Cross-region read replicas are eventually consistent and not active-active for writes.
- D. Redshift is a data warehousing service, optimized for analytical queries over large datasets, not for high-throughput, low-latency transactional or read operations for an operational product catalog, nor does it inherently support global active-active replication.
DynamoDB Global Tables
A fully managed, multi-Region, multi-master database that provides fast, local performance for globally distributed applications, offering active-active replication and eventual consistency.
- Active-active replication across multiple AWS Regions.
- Single-digit millisecond latency at any scale.
- NoSQL (key-value, document) database, supporting flexible schemas.
- Ideal for globally distributed applications requiring high availability and low latency.
Memory trick: For global scale, low latency, and flexible data, DynamoDB Global Tables are your best bet.