Amazon Web Services (AWS) has launched Amazon DynamoDB Accelerator (DAX), an in-memory cache that can reduce Amazon DynamoDB response times from milliseconds to microseconds.
AWS customers can add DAX to their existing DynamoDB applications with a few clicks in the AWS Management Console – no application rewrites required. There are no upfront costs or commitments with DAX, and customers only pay for the capacity they provision.
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AWS customers including Adobe, AdRoll, Airbnb, Amazon, DataXu, Duolingo, Expedia, FanDuel, Lyft, Mapbox, MLB Advanced Media, Redfin, Supercell, Twilio, Under Armour, VidRoll, and Zynga rely on Amazon DynamoDB to deliver single-digit millisecond latency for mobile, web, gaming, ad tech, and IoT applications.
Many applications with near real-time requirements for accessing data such as real-time bidding, weather data, social gaming, or financial trading need faster performance. Deploying and managing in-memory caching clusters in front of Amazon DynamoDB requires developers to rewrite their applications.
AWS said DAX enables customers to improve Amazon DynamoDB performance up to 10 times, speeding response times to microseconds without requiring customers to setup, manage, and sync a separate caching cluster.
Customers don’t need to rewrite their applications to get DAX for DynamoDB apps; they provision a DAX cluster, point their application to the DAX endpoint, and DAX automatically caches item and query results in-memory on designated DAX instances.
AWS said DAX clusters can scale while handling millions of requests per second, combining in-memory performance acceleration with the simplicity, flexibility, and scale of Amazon DynamoDB so applications remain fast and responsive regardless of the volume of requests.
“In five years, Amazon DynamoDB has emerged as the backbone for many Internet applications and Amazon’s consumer businesses, and developers use Amazon DynamoDB to handle well over a trillion requests per day. Customers that need applications to respond in microseconds have asked us whether we could make Amazon DynamoDB even faster,” said Raju Gulabani, vice president, Databases, Analytics, and AI, AWS.
Expedia, a leading travel company, uses DynamoDB to power many applications.
“We received early access to Amazon DynamoDB Accelerator, and it has proven to be fast and easy to use. DAX represents a big opportunity for us to find the optimal balance between infrastructure cost and system performance,” said Brandon O’Brien, principal software engineer, Expedia.
Eyeview Digital is an ad tech company focusing on video marketing technology, is using Amazon DynamoDB and DAX.
“With hundreds of thousands of queries to Amazon DynamoDB per second, we have to make sure we are not hitting hot keys, balancing load, and optimizing for cost efficiency,” said Shahar Kobrinky, vice president, Architecture and Scale, Eyeview.
Genesys is a provider of omnichannel customer experience and contact center solutions.
“I expect DAX to become the replacement for our distributed cache plus Amazon DynamoDB storage tier across our collections of microservices in PureCloud,” said Glenn Nethercutt, chief architect of PureCloud by Genesys.
