Title

AWS re:Invent 2022 - What’s new with Amazon DocumentDB (DAT219)

Summary

• Amazon DocumentDB is a scalable, highly durable, and fully managed database service compatible with MongoDB API-based workloads.
• DocumentDB's architecture allows independent scaling of compute and storage, supports up to 15 read replicas, and offers multi-region clusters for high availability and disaster recovery.
• It is fully managed, meaning AWS handles administrative tasks like backup, patching, and security, and integrates with CloudWatch for monitoring and alerting.
• DocumentDB is suitable for storing, querying, and indexing JSON data, especially when dealing with flexible schemas and the need for fast iteration.
• It supports operational and analytic workloads with features like geospatial indexes, multi-key indexes, and a JDBC driver for analytical tools.
• DocumentDB is used across various industries, including web publishing, retail, finance, and gaming.
• New features in 2022 include Graviton2 instances, availability in additional regions, geospatial indexes, aggregation operators, decimal 128 support, dynamic volume resizing, fast database cloning, query auditing, and Performance Insights.
• Elastic Clusters, announced at re:Invent 2022, enable scaling beyond the limits of instance-based clusters, supporting millions of writes per second and offering a future-proof solution for large-scale workloads.
• Elastic Clusters are priced based on compute (vCPUs per hour), storage (GB per month), and backups (GB per month), with no upfront costs and predictable pricing.
• A free trial of DocumentDB is available, offering 750 hours of an instance, 5 GB of storage, 30 million IOs, and 5 GB backup.

Insights

• The introduction of Elastic Clusters is a significant development for Amazon DocumentDB, addressing the need for horizontal scaling and the ability to handle massive write operations, which is crucial for large-scale applications.
• The separation of compute and storage in DocumentDB's architecture is a key feature that provides flexibility and cost efficiency, allowing users to scale resources according to their needs without unnecessary overhead.
• The compatibility with MongoDB API means that customers can migrate to DocumentDB with minimal changes to their existing applications, reducing the friction typically associated with adopting a new database service.
• The focus on fully managed services, including automated administrative tasks and integrated monitoring, reflects AWS's commitment to reducing the operational burden on customers, allowing them to focus on application development and business logic.
• The pricing model for Elastic Clusters is designed to be simple and predictable, which is likely to be attractive to businesses looking to control costs while scaling their database workloads.
• The free trial offering is a strategic move to encourage adoption of DocumentDB by lowering the barrier to entry for new customers who want to test the service's capabilities before committing to it.