Chapter 1, Getting Started, highlights why we need the cloud-hosted NoSQL database, introduces readers to various NoSQL databases, and then starts with what DynamoDB is all about, what its history is, and its features.

Chapter 2, Data Models, introduces readers to DynamoDB's rich data model, its data types, and various operations one can perform using AWS SDK for DynamoDB with various languages, such as Java, .NET, and PHP. This also provides good detail on modeling relationships in DynamoDB.

Chapter 3, How DynamoDB Works, gives an insight into the DynamoDB architecture and the various techniques it uses to maintain its highly distributed structure, the ring topology, replication synchronization, fault tolerance, and so on.

Chapter 4, Best Practices, details readers on how they can save their money by making time- and cost-efficient calls to DynamoDB. It also enables readers to deal with DynamoDB limitations. It talks about table best practices, item and indexes best practices, use of caching techniques, time series best practices, and so on.

Chapter 5, Advanced Topics, covers detailed understanding of CloudWatch monitoring, use of Identity and Access Management for DynamoDB operations, creating and applying security policies, and the use of the AWS Secure Token Service to generate temporary credentials. It also details error handling in DynamoDB and how to set auto retries and exponential back-offs on failures.

Chapter 6, Integrating DynamoDB with Other AWS Components, enlightens readers about the AWS ecosystem, how they can integrate other AWS components, such as Elastic Map Reduce (EMR), S3, RedShift, CloudSearch, and so on, in order to have everything that they want to do with their application in one place.

Chapter 7, DynamoDB – Use Cases, provides readers with examples on creating an end-to-end use case, what technology stack they use, how they leverage DynamoDB SDK APIs, and so on.

Chapter 8, Useful Libraries and Tools, introduces users to some very cool, ready-to-use libraries, such as Geo Library, Transaction Library, and libraries in various languages, such as Perl, Python, Ruby, Go, Erlang, and so on. It also gives insights into useful tools that enable users to test their code offline, tools that enable auto-scaling of production applications, and tools that provide utilities, such as backup/archiving of DynamoDB data.

Chapter 9, Mobile Apps Development using DynamoDB, gives users directions on how to use DynamoDB SDKs for iOS and Android and helps them to build Internet-scalable mobile applications easily. It also provides various options on building a secure user-management technique.

This book requires you to have a basic understanding of Cloud, Amazon Web Services, and NoSQL databases. It has code snippets provided in various popular languages, such as Java, .NET, and PHP. So, basic understanding of one of these languages is good to have. The content is explained in simple English and has been explained using diagrams, screenshots, and suitable examples.

This book is for web/mobile application developers, managers who are considering undertaking a project on DynamoDB, the NoSQL users who are sick of maintaining the distributed clusters, and security analysts who want to validate the security measures imposed by Amazon.

In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "This configuration option allows us to set the maximum number of times HttpClient should retry sending the request to DynamoDB."

A block of code is set as follows:

   // Create a configuration objectfinal ClientConfiguration cfg = new ClientConfiguration();// Set the maximum auto-reties to 3cfg.setMaxErrorRetry(3);
    // Set configuration object in Clientclient.setConfiguration(cfg);

When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:

AmazonDynamoDBClient client = new AmazonDynamoDBClient();

// Set geo table in configuration
GeoDataManagerConfiguration geoDataManagerConfiguration = new GeoDataManagerConfiguration(
        client, "geo-table");
    
// Create Geo data manager
GeoDataManager geoDataManager = new GeoDataManager(geoDataManagerConfiguration);

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

mvn clean install -Dgpg.skip=true

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "You can click on Continue to move ahead."

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