Cloud Computing

The Art of Single Table Design (DynamoDB)

Moving from SQL to NoSQL often fails because people try to normalize data. This lesson explains how to group multiple entities into one table for O(1) performance.

Level: AdvancedCloud Computing

What You'll Learn

Why normalisation fails in DynamoDB
Partition key and sort key design patterns
Entity grouping with prefixed sort keys
Access pattern-first schema design
Modelling one-to-many and many-to-many relationships
User + Orders + Profile in a single table
Query and GetItem at O(1) cost

What's Included

🧭AI Tutor🔒

Interactive learning path with AI-generated lessons read aloud by your personal tutor

🧪Practice Lab🔒

Step-by-step lab instructions with AI guidance — run in your own IDE or sandbox.

🎙️Mock Interviews🔒

AI interviewer asks tailored questions, gives real-time feedback and a score report

📝Evaluation🔒

MCQ questions (theory, practical, code) to test your knowledge and earn a badge

⚔️Challenge AI🔒

Compete head-to-head against AI on real production problems — judged on correctness, performance, scalability, code quality, and edge cases

Course Syllabus

Module 1: DynamoDB Mental Model

  • •Why SQL normalisation breaks NoSQL performance
  • •DynamoDB data model: tables, items, attributes
  • •Partition key vs sort key — the compound key
  • •Hot partitions and how to avoid them
  • •Access pattern-first design methodology

Module 2: Single Table Patterns

  • •Entity prefixing with sort keys (USER#, ORDER#)
  • •Grouping User + Orders + Profile in one table
  • •GSIs (Global Secondary Indexes) for alternate access
  • •Sparse indexes for optional attributes
  • •Overloading GSI keys for multi-entity queries

Module 3: Building the Data Model

  • •Mapping a 3-table relational schema to DynamoDB
  • •Writing and reading with the AWS SDK
  • •Transactional writes across entity types
  • •Cost and performance comparison vs multi-table
  • •Capstone: User + Orders + Profile single table implementation

You're all set

Everything in this course is unlocked.

Continue Learning →
✓AI Tutor
✓Practice Lab
✓Mock Interviews
✓Evaluation
✓Challenge AI