Complaints about the cost of DynamoDB are all too common it seems: “serverless (DynamoDB) is too expensive at scale!”
While DynamoDB’s metering has its faults, it’s important not to take these claims at face value - look deeper. From experience, it is often true that:
- due diligence was not applied in initial design, or band-wagons like “Single Table Design” were applied without proper consideration
- expensive choices like on-demand capacity mode or consistent reads are being made without understanding the trade-offs
- architectural techniques which can (and should) be applied are not in place - queue-based load-leveling, caching are good examples
- the full value in terms of guarantees provided are not understood and accounted for
All of this said, it’s possible that DynamoDB simply is not the right tool for the job. There are many terrific indexed data storage options available today. There is no zealousy at High Bar Solutions - only a belief that you should seek out the solution with the greatest level of operational abstraction available, within the bounds of your technical requirements and your business constraints.
Whether you have one or one thousand DynamoDB tables, High Bar Solutions can help you make an assessment across them with the goal of optimizing your cost efficiency. We can teach you techniques and patterns for reducing spend while gaining the greatest benefit from the service. At that point, you’ll be in a better position to truly assess whether the price paid for DynamoDB is justified in each of your applications.
The best thing you can do to improve cost efficiency with DynamoDB is to get your data model correct up-front. But beyond this (and when tactically necessary), High Bar Solutions can help you to reduce your spend and teach you how to keep it under control in the future. Considering Reserved Capacity? It’s highly recommended that you go through a cost optimization effort first, as this will help you to accurately assess your needs before making a commitment.