Amazon DynamoDB vs Amazon EBS | What are the differences?

Amazon DynamoDB vs Amazon EBS: What are the differences?

What is Amazon DynamoDB? Fully managed NoSQL database service. All data items are stored on Solid State Drives (SSDs), and are replicated across 3 Availability Zones for high availability and durability. With DynamoDB, you can offload the administrative burden of operating and scaling a highly available distributed database cluster, while paying a low price for only what you use.

What is Amazon EBS? Block level storage volumes for use with Amazon EC2 instances. Amazon EBS volumes are network-attached, and persist independently from the life of an instance. Amazon EBS provides highly available, highly reliable, predictable storage volumes that can be attached to a running Amazon EC2 instance and exposed as a device within the instance. Amazon EBS is particularly suited for applications that require a database, file system, or access to raw block level storage.

Amazon DynamoDB can be classified as a tool in the “NoSQL Database as a Service” category, while Amazon EBS is grouped under “Cloud Storage”.

Some of the features offered by Amazon DynamoDB are:

• Automated Storage Scaling – There is no limit to the amount of data you can store in a DynamoDB table, and the service automatically allocates more storage, as you store more data using the DynamoDB write APIs.
• Provisioned Throughput – When creating a table, simply specify how much request capacity you require. DynamoDB allocates dedicated resources to your table to meet your performance requirements, and automatically partitions data over a sufficient number of servers to meet your request capacity. If your throughput requirements change, simply update your table’s request capacity using the AWS Management Console or the Amazon DynamoDB APIs. You are still able to achieve your prior throughput levels while scaling is underway.
• Fully Distributed, Shared Nothing Architecture – Amazon DynamoDB scales horizontally and can seamlessly scale a single table over hundreds of servers.

On the other hand, Amazon EBS provides the following key features:

• Amazon EBS allows you to create storage volumes from 1 GB to 1 TB that can be mounted as devices by Amazon EC2 instances. Multiple volumes can be mounted to the same instance.
• Amazon EBS enables you to provision a specific level of I/O performance if desired, by choosing a Provisioned IOPS volume. This allows you to predictably scale to thousands of IOPS per Amazon EC2 instance.
• Storage volumes behave like raw, unformatted block devices, with user supplied device names and a block device interface. You can create a file system on top of Amazon EBS volumes, or use them in any other way you would use a block device (like a hard drive).

“Predictable performance and cost” is the top reason why over 53 developers like Amazon DynamoDB, while over 34 developers mention “Point-in-time snapshots” as the leading cause for choosing Amazon EBS.

According to the StackShare community, Amazon DynamoDB has a broader approval, being mentioned in 430 company stacks & 173 developers stacks; compared to Amazon EBS, which is listed in 178 company stacks and 47 developer stacks.