Overview

• Storing data on disk (EFS, EBS, EC2 Instance Store, S3) can have its limits

• Sometimes, you want to store data in a database...

• You can structure the data

• You build indexes to efficiently query / search through the data

• You define relationships between your datasets

• Databases are optimized for a purpose and come with different

  features, shapes, and constraints

Relational Databases

• Looks just like Excel spreadsheets, with links between them!

• Can use the SQL language to perform queries/lookups

NoSQL Databases

• NoSQL = non-SQL = non relational databases

• NoSQL databases are purpose built for specific data models and have flexible schemas for building modern applications.

• Benefits:

  • Flexibility: easy to evolve data model

  • Scalability: designed to scale-out by using distributed clusters

  • High-performance: optimized for a specific data model

  • Highly functional: types optimized for the data model

• Examples: Key-value, document, graph, in-memory, search databases

• JSON = JavaScript Object Notation

• JSON is a common form of data that fits into a NoSQL model

• Data can be nested

• Fields can change over time

• Support for new types: arrays, etc...

Databases & Shared Responsibility on AWS

• AWS offers use to manage different databases

• Benefits include:

• Quick Provisioning, High Availability, Vertical and Horizontal Scaling

• Automated Backup & Restore, Operations, Upgrades

• Operating System Patching is handled by AWS

• Monitoring, alerting

• Note: many databases technologies could be run on EC2, but you must handle yourself the resiliency, backup, patching, high availability, fault tolerance, scaling...