NoSQL/DynamoDB Flashcards

1
Q

What is a partition key in DynamoDB?

A

Can act as a primary key. Determines what data is stored together.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
2
Q

What is a sort key in DDB?

A

Determines sort order of partitions. Optionally part of composite PK along with partition key.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
3
Q

1 WCU means you can write ___ of data per second

A

1 KB

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
4
Q

1 RCU means you can read ____ of data per second.

A

4 KB

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
5
Q

What are the two types of backups for DDB?

A

On Demand and Point In Time Recovery.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
6
Q

When do on demand backups get deleted?

A

When you delete them, no automatic deletion.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
7
Q

When are point in time recovery snapshots deleted?

A

Auto after 35 days

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
8
Q

How far behind are point in time recovery backups?

A

One second

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
9
Q

How are WCUs and RCUs handled in on demand tables?

A

You pay a price per million RCUs or WCUs. Scaling done for you automatically.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
10
Q

How are WCUs and RCUs handled with a Provisioned table?

A

RCU and WCU set per table.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
11
Q

What are the two ways to read data from DynamoDB?

A

Query and Scan

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
12
Q

What is the advantage of Query in DDB?

A

Capacity consumed is only on what is returned by query.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
13
Q

What is the disadvantage of Query in DDB?

A

Not flexible, can only query on PK or PK/SK

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
14
Q

What is the advantage of Scan in DynamoDB?

A

You can query on any attribute

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
15
Q

What is the disadvantage of Scan in DDB?

A

Capacity consumed for every item scanned through

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
16
Q

What is a Local Secondary Index?

A

Alternative view of table that uses an alternative sort key

17
Q

When can LSI’s be created?

A

Only when table is created

18
Q

What is a Global Secondary Index?

A

Alternative partition key or partition key/sort key combination for a table

19
Q

When can GSI’s be created?

20
Q

What is a stream in DDB?

A

A 24 hour rolling time ordered list of item changes in a table

21
Q

In DDB, what is the primary use of a trigger?

A

When an attribute for an item is changed, we can send an event using streams to a lambda function to take some sort of action.

22
Q

What is the purpose of a Global table?

A

Allow for global high availability and global disaster recovery and business continuity.

23
Q

How is DAX highly available?

A

There is a primary node and read replicas distributed across multiple A Z ‘s within a VPC.

24
Q

What is the primary use of DAX?

A

Allows for caching of reads from DynamoDB table. This can speed up reads and allow for better scaling.

25
What is Elasticache?
An in-memory, high performance database (cache) that lives within an application.
26
What is the main use of Athena?
Read data that is stored in S3 using SQL queries
27
Where is Redshift data backed up to?
S3
28
How often do automatic backups of redshift occur?
Every 8 hours or 5 GB of data consumed