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Ch2

Differences Between AWS Database Types🔗

The AWS Database Landscape🔗

In AWS three primary types of services used by Consumers : Compute, Storage, Database

There are two types of databases

  • Relation (SQL)
    • optimized around data storage
    • based on Structured Query Language for data retrieval
  • Non-Relational
    • process unstructured and semi-structured data quickly
    • often distributed on multiple nodes

There are nine primary categories of Databases available in AWS

  1. Relational
  2. Key-Value
  3. Document
  4. In-Memory
  5. Graph
  6. Columnar
  7. Time-Series
  8. Quantum Ledger
  9. Search
  • Size, Shape and Computational Requirements of data gives idea to developers which kind of database is best for them.
  • Cloud promises agility, ability to use and select appropriate database or multiple of them according to workload, rather than using one general purpose database.
  • Scalability and Elasticity is another benefit from cloud

Types of Workloads

  • Operational
    • Online Transactional Processing (OLTP) : OLTP is centered around a set of common business processes that are : Regular, Repeatable and Durable.
    • Examples includes : E-commerce, IT, CMS, etc.
  • Analytical
    • Online Analytics Processing (OLAP) : Run for Business Intelligence Workloads or Data Analytics
    • Workloads are often : Retrospective(Company’s Quarter Analysis), Streaming(Real Time Processing) and Predictive(ML/AI)

Relational Databases🔗

Schema : structure that needs to defined before entering data into the database and designed based on reporting requirements.

  • Relation DBs are highly structured and have been around since 60s.
  • Schema changes are expensive in terms of time and compute power, with risk of corrupting data
  • Data is stored in tables (Relation)
  • Each Row is referred as Record and Each Column is referred as Key, and the value referenced is called as Attribute
  • Each Table will have unique primary key that is used for relational purposes for other tables via foreign key.
  • Data Integrity(data stored is reliable and accurate) is particular concern in RDBS : ACID transactions
    • Atomicity : A single database transaction (which succeeds or fails completely)
    • Consistency : Transaction must take database from one valid state to another valid state.
    • Isolation : Two transactions don’t interfere with each other
    • Durability : Data changes become permanent once the transaction is committed to database.
  • Keys and Data Integrity
    • Primary and Foreign Key are constraints
    • Entity Integrity ensure primary key is unique to table and it has a value (NOT NULL)
    • Referential Integrity ensures that foreign key is primary key to its originating table. Orphaned Data is BAD !
  • API of relational database is SQL (Structured Query Language)
  • Relation databases have Data Access Controls and features like : Authentication, Authorization and Audit Logging

**Data Normalization: ** Normalisation is a process where information is organised efficiently and consistently before storing it.

  • Duplicate data is discarded
  • Closely related fields are aggregated

Scaling and Sharding

  • Relational Databases are not partition tolerant, data partitions are called as shards. Two shards needs to co-ordinate to validate data consistency and it becomes costly. Both shards will same number of Keys (Horizontal Scaling (adds copy of the db))
  • Most of the times Relational databases are scaled vertically (growing server by adding memory, cpu and a disk volume).

AWS Relation Database Engines(6) : Aurora(native to AWS), MySQL, Postgres, MariaDB, Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server.