DynamoDB Streams concept - Mini Project: Build & Apply

DynamoDB Streams Concept

📖 Scenario: You are managing a simple inventory system for a small store. You want to keep track of changes made to the inventory items, such as when items are added, updated, or removed. DynamoDB Streams can help you capture these changes in real time.

🎯 Goal: Build a DynamoDB table with a stream enabled to capture item changes. Then, configure the stream to capture only the new images of changed items.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a DynamoDB table named Inventory with a primary key ItemId of type string.

Enable DynamoDB Streams on the Inventory table.

Set the stream view type to NEW_IMAGE to capture only the new state of items after changes.

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

DynamoDB Streams help track changes in your database in real time, useful for audit logs, notifications, or syncing data to other systems.

💼 Career

Understanding DynamoDB Streams is important for backend developers and cloud engineers working with AWS to build scalable, event-driven applications.

1

Create the DynamoDB table

Create a DynamoDB table named Inventory with a primary key called ItemId of type string.

DynamoDB

# Your code here to create the Inventory table with ItemId as the primary key

Need a hint?

Use the AWS CLI create-table command with the correct attribute definitions and key schema.

2

Enable DynamoDB Streams

Enable DynamoDB Streams on the Inventory table by updating the table to turn on streams.

DynamoDB

aws dynamodb create-table \
    --table-name Inventory \
    --attribute-definitions AttributeName=ItemId,AttributeType=S \
    --key-schema AttributeName=ItemId,KeyType=HASH \
    --provisioned-throughput ReadCapacityUnits=5,WriteCapacityUnits=5
# Your code here to enable streams on the Inventory table

Need a hint?

Use the AWS CLI update-table command with --stream-specification to enable streams.

3

Set the stream view type

Set the stream view type to NEW_IMAGE so the stream captures only the new images of items after changes.

DynamoDB

aws dynamodb create-table \
    --table-name Inventory \
    --attribute-definitions AttributeName=ItemId,AttributeType=S \
    --key-schema AttributeName=ItemId,KeyType=HASH \
    --provisioned-throughput ReadCapacityUnits=5,WriteCapacityUnits=5

aws dynamodb update-table \
    --table-name Inventory \
    --stream-specification StreamEnabled=true,StreamViewType=NEW_IMAGE
# Your code here to confirm the stream view type is set to NEW_IMAGE

Need a hint?

Use describe-table to check the stream settings.

4

Complete the DynamoDB Streams setup

Complete the setup by confirming the stream ARN is available in the table description.

DynamoDB

aws dynamodb create-table \
    --table-name Inventory \
    --attribute-definitions AttributeName=ItemId,AttributeType=S \
    --key-schema AttributeName=ItemId,KeyType=HASH \
    --provisioned-throughput ReadCapacityUnits=5,WriteCapacityUnits=5

aws dynamodb update-table \
    --table-name Inventory \
    --stream-specification StreamEnabled=true,StreamViewType=NEW_IMAGE

aws dynamodb describe-table --table-name Inventory
# Your code here to confirm the stream ARN is present

Need a hint?

Look for LatestStreamArn in the table description output to confirm streams are enabled.