Amazon DynamoDB and Application Auto Scaling - Application Auto Scaling
Service-linked roleService principalRegistering DynamoDB resources as scalable targets with Application Auto ScalingRelated resources

Amazon DynamoDB and Application Auto Scaling

You can scale DynamoDB tables and global secondary indexes using target tracking scaling policies and scheduled scaling.

Use the following information to help you integrate DynamoDB with Application Auto Scaling.

Service-linked role created for DynamoDB

The following service-linked role is automatically created in your AWS account when registering DynamoDB resources as scalable targets with Application Auto Scaling. This role allows Application Auto Scaling to perform supported operations within your account. For more information, see Service-linked roles for Application Auto Scaling.

  • AWSServiceRoleForApplicationAutoScaling_DynamoDBTable

Service principal used by the service-linked role

The service-linked role in the previous section can be assumed only by the service principal authorized by the trust relationships defined for the role. The service-linked role used by Application Auto Scaling grants access to the following service principal:

  • dynamodb.application-autoscaling.amazonaws.com

Registering DynamoDB resources as scalable targets with Application Auto Scaling

Application Auto Scaling requires a scalable target before you can create scaling policies or scheduled actions for a DynamoDB table or global secondary index. A scalable target is a resource that Application Auto Scaling can scale out and scale in. Scalable targets are uniquely identified by the combination of resource ID, scalable dimension, and namespace.

If you configure auto scaling using the DynamoDB console, then DynamoDB automatically registers a scalable target for you.

If you want to configure auto scaling using the AWS CLI or one of the AWS SDKs, you can use the following options:

  • AWS CLI:

    Call the register-scalable-target command for a table's write capacity. The following example registers the provisioned write capacity of a table called my-table, with a minimum capacity of five write capacity units and a maximum capacity of 10 write capacity units.

    aws application-autoscaling register-scalable-target \
  --service-namespace dynamodb \
  --scalable-dimension dynamodb:table:WriteCapacityUnits \
  --resource-id table/my-table \
  --min-capacity 5 \
  --max-capacity 10

    If successful, this command returns the ARN of the scalable target.

    {
    "ScalableTargetARN": "arn:aws:application-autoscaling:region:account-id:scalable-target/1234abcd56ab78cd901ef1234567890ab123"
}

    Call the register-scalable-target command for a table's read capacity. The following example registers the provisioned read capacity of a table called my-table, with a minimum capacity of five read capacity units and a maximum capacity of 10 read units.

    aws application-autoscaling register-scalable-target \
  --service-namespace dynamodb \
  --scalable-dimension dynamodb:table:ReadCapacityUnits \
  --resource-id table/my-table \
  --min-capacity 5 \
  --max-capacity 10

    If successful, this command returns the ARN of the scalable target.

    {
    "ScalableTargetARN": "arn:aws:application-autoscaling:region:account-id:scalable-target/1234abcd56ab78cd901ef1234567890ab123"
}

    Call the register-scalable-target command for the write capacity of a global secondary index. The following example registers the provisioned write capacity of a global secondary index called my-table-index, with a minimum capacity of five write capacity units and a maximum capacity of 10 write capacity units.

    aws application-autoscaling register-scalable-target \
  --service-namespace dynamodb \
  --scalable-dimension dynamodb:index:WriteCapacityUnits \
  --resource-id table/my-table/index/my-table-index \
  --min-capacity 5 \
  --max-capacity 10

    If successful, this command returns the ARN of the scalable target.

    {
    "ScalableTargetARN": "arn:aws:application-autoscaling:region:account-id:scalable-target/1234abcd56ab78cd901ef1234567890ab123"
}

    Call the register-scalable-target command for the read capacity of a global secondary index. The following example registers the provisioned read capacity of a global secondary index called my-table-index, with a minimum capacity of five read capacity units and a maximum capacity of 10 read capacity units.

    aws application-autoscaling register-scalable-target \
  --service-namespace dynamodb \
  --scalable-dimension dynamodb:index:ReadCapacityUnits \
  --resource-id table/my-table/index/my-table-index \
  --min-capacity 5 \
  --max-capacity 10

    If successful, this command returns the ARN of the scalable target.

    {
    "ScalableTargetARN": "arn:aws:application-autoscaling:region:account-id:scalable-target/1234abcd56ab78cd901ef1234567890ab123"
}

  • AWS SDK:

    Call the RegisterScalableTarget operation and provide ResourceId, ScalableDimension, ServiceNamespace, MinCapacity, and MaxCapacity as parameters.

If you are just getting started with Application Auto Scaling, you can find additional useful information about scaling your DynamoDB resources in the following documentation:

You can also find a tutorial for scheduled scaling in Tutorial: Get started with scheduled scaling using the AWS CLI. In this tutorial, you learn the basic steps to configure scaling so your DynamoDB table scales at scheduled times.