Top 100 DynamoDB Interview Questions for 5+ Years of Experience

Basic DynamoDB Questions

1. What is Amazon DynamoDB, and how does it differ from traditional relational databases?
2. What are the primary components of DynamoDB (Tables, Items, Attributes)?
3. What is a primary key in DynamoDB, and how does it work?
4. Explain the difference between partition key and sort key in DynamoDB.
5. What are secondary indexes in DynamoDB, and when would you use them?
6. What is the role of the Global Secondary Index (GSI) in DynamoDB?
7. What is the Local Secondary Index (LSI) in DynamoDB, and how is it different from a GSI?
8. How do DynamoDB tables scale in terms of capacity and performance?
9. How would you use DynamoDB Streams in a real-world application?
10. Explain DynamoDB consistency models: eventual consistency vs strong consistency.

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Intermediate DynamoDB Questions

1. What is DynamoDB Accelerator (DAX), and how does it help with performance?
2. How does auto-scaling work in DynamoDB, and how do you configure it?
3. Explain how write throughput and read throughput are measured in DynamoDB.
4. How do you handle hot partitions in DynamoDB?
5. What is the Provisioned Capacity mode, and how does it differ from On-demand Capacity?
6. How does DynamoDB handle transactions, and what are the benefits of ACID transactions in DynamoDB?
7. How do you ensure data durability in DynamoDB?
8. What are the best practices for data modeling in DynamoDB?
9. How would you design a denormalized schema in DynamoDB?
10. How does DynamoDB Streams enable event-driven architectures?

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Advanced DynamoDB Questions

1. How do you ensure idempotency in DynamoDB operations?
2. How do you optimize query performance in DynamoDB using secondary indexes?
3. What is the difference between DynamoDB Query and DynamoDB Scan operations?
4. Explain the CAP theorem and how DynamoDB ensures availability and partition tolerance.
5. How does DynamoDB handle eventual consistency in a globally distributed architecture?
6. How do you implement Global Tables in DynamoDB for cross-region replication?
7. What are the limits of DynamoDB tables, and how do you scale them for large datasets?
8. What is DynamoDB Throttling, and how can you avoid it?
9. What is the purpose of Write Shards in DynamoDB?
10. How do you implement time-to-live (TTL) in DynamoDB?

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Performance Optimization

1. What are best practices for query optimization in DynamoDB?
2. How does DynamoDB Adaptive Capacity work to handle traffic fluctuations?
3. How can you optimize large scale writes in DynamoDB for performance?
4. Explain DynamoDB's eventual consistency in terms of query performance.
5. How would you use DynamoDB Streams to build event-driven architectures?
6. What are some best practices for provisioning throughput in DynamoDB?
7. How does DynamoDB handle hot partitions, and how can you avoid them?
8. How do you leverage Global Secondary Indexes (GSI) for faster queries in DynamoDB?
9. How do you optimize DynamoDB queries for large datasets?
10. What is the purpose of DynamoDB DAX (DynamoDB Accelerator), and how does it improve read performance?

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Data Security and Authentication

1. What are the security features of DynamoDB for securing data at rest and in transit?
2. How does AWS IAM integrate with DynamoDB to control access?
3. Explain the role of encryption at rest in DynamoDB.
4. How do you securely authenticate to DynamoDB using AWS IAM roles?
5. How does AWS KMS integrate with DynamoDB for encryption?
6. What are the best practices for DynamoDB security?
7. How do you manage data access control for DynamoDB in a multi-user environment?
8. What is VPC Endpoint for DynamoDB, and how does it enhance security?
9. How would you audit access to your DynamoDB tables?
10. What role does IAM policies play in controlling access to DynamoDB resources?

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Real-World Scenarios

1. How would you design a user management system with DynamoDB?
2. Explain how DynamoDB can be used for building a session management system.
3. How would you design a real-time recommendation engine using DynamoDB?
4. How can you migrate data from a relational database to DynamoDB?
5. Describe a use case for Global Tables in a multi-region deployment.
6. How would you integrate DynamoDB with other AWS services like Lambda or S3?
7. How would you handle read-heavy vs write-heavy workloads in DynamoDB?
8. How do you handle large objects or binary data (BLOBs) in DynamoDB?
9. What strategies would you use to handle large item sizes in DynamoDB?
10. How would you design a time-series data storage solution using DynamoDB?

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Sharding and Scaling

1. How does sharding work in DynamoDB? How does it help with scalability?
2. What is the partition key, and how does it affect data distribution in DynamoDB?
3. Explain the concept of Global Tables in DynamoDB and their use for scaling.
4. How does DynamoDB handle hot partitions, and how do you mitigate them?
5. How does DynamoDB automatically scale to handle increasing read and write traffic?
6. How does Adaptive Capacity in DynamoDB work to balance traffic load?
7. What are the challenges of scaling DynamoDB tables and how can you overcome them?
8. What is provisioned capacity in DynamoDB, and how do you adjust it dynamically?
9. How do you monitor DynamoDB performance and optimize its scalability?
10. How would you implement multi-region replication using Global Tables?

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Backup and Restore

1. How do you back up a DynamoDB table?
2. What is point-in-time recovery (PITR) in DynamoDB, and how do you enable it?
3. How would you restore a DynamoDB table from a backup?
4. How does DynamoDB Streams help with backup and recovery operations?
5. How do you back up and restore a Global Table in DynamoDB?
6. How does DynamoDB ensure durability and availability of your data?
7. Explain the concept of DynamoDB Time-to-Live (TTL) for automatic data removal.
8. How do you perform a table restore in DynamoDB after accidental data deletion?
9. How would you implement a disaster recovery plan for your DynamoDB-based application?
10. How does On-Demand Backup work in DynamoDB?

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Version Upgrades and Migration

1. How do you manage version upgrades in DynamoDB?
2. What are the key considerations when migrating to DynamoDB from a traditional relational database?
3. How would you migrate data from MySQL to DynamoDB?
4. What are the challenges of migrating from a relational database to DynamoDB?
5. How would you handle schema changes in DynamoDB?
6. What is the impact of upgrading your DynamoDB version?
7. How do you implement backward compatibility with DynamoDB?
8. What is the process for multi-region deployment of DynamoDB tables?
9. How does DynamoDB Streams assist in data migration to different environments?
10. How would you handle data validation during migration to DynamoDB?

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Miscellaneous DynamoDB Questions

1. How would you integrate DynamoDB with AWS Lambda for serverless applications?
2. What is the DynamoDB Document Client, and how does it simplify access to DynamoDB?
3. How does DynamoDB handle pagination for large datasets?
4. What are the benefits of using DynamoDB for mobile applications?
5. What are the cost considerations when using DynamoDB at scale?
6. How does DynamoDB support JSON documents, and how do you query them?
7. How does DynamoDB differ from Amazon RDS in terms of scalability and use cases?
8. How would you integrate DynamoDB with AWS Step Functions?
9. What are some limitations of using DynamoDB compared to other databases?
10. How do you handle deadlocks and race conditions in DynamoDB?

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