# Best practices for designing and architecting with Amazon Keyspaces (for Apache Cassandra)
<a name="best-practices"></a>

Use this section to quickly find recommendations for maximizing performance and minimizing throughput costs when working with Amazon Keyspaces.

**Contents**
+ [Key differences and design principles of NoSQL design](bp-general-nosql-design.md)
  + [Differences between relational data design and NoSQL](bp-general-nosql-design.md#bp-general-nosql-design-vs-relational)
  + [Two key concepts for NoSQL design](bp-general-nosql-design.md#bp-general-nosql-design-concepts)
  + [Approaching NoSQL design](bp-general-nosql-design.md#bp-general-nosql-design-approach)
+ [Optimize client driver connections for the serverless environment](connections.md)
  + [How connections work in Amazon Keyspaces](connections.md#connections.howtheywork)
  + [How to configure connections in Amazon Keyspaces](connections.md#connections.howtoconfigure)
  + [How to configure the retry policy for connections in Amazon Keyspaces](connections.md#connections.retry-policies)
  + [How to configure connections over VPC endpoints in Amazon Keyspaces](connections.md#connections.VPCendpoints)
  + [How to monitor connections in Amazon Keyspaces](connections.md#connections.howtomonitor)
  + [How to handle connection errors in Amazon Keyspaces](connections.md#connections.errorhandling)
+ [Data modeling best practices: recommendations for designing data models](data-modeling.md)
  + [How to use partition keys effectively in Amazon Keyspaces](bp-partition-key-design.md)
    + [Use write sharding to evenly distribute workloads across partitions](bp-partition-key-sharding.md)
      + [Sharding using compound partition keys and random values](bp-partition-key-sharding.md#bp-partition-key-sharding-random)
      + [Sharding using compound partition keys and calculated values](bp-partition-key-sharding.md#bp-partition-key-sharding-calculated)
+ [Optimizing costs of Amazon Keyspaces tables](bp-cost-optimization.md)
  + [Evaluate your costs at the table level](CostOptimization_TableLevelCostAnalysis.md)
    + [How to view the costs of a single Amazon Keyspaces table](CostOptimization_TableLevelCostAnalysis.md#CostOptimization_TableLevelCostAnalysis_ViewInfo)
    + [Cost Explorer's default view](CostOptimization_TableLevelCostAnalysis.md#CostOptimization_TableLevelCostAnalysis_CostExplorer)
    + [How to use and apply table tags in Cost Explorer](CostOptimization_TableLevelCostAnalysis.md#CostOptimization_TableLevelCostAnalysis_Tagging)
  + [Evaluate your table's capacity mode](CostOptimization_TableCapacityMode.md)
    + [What table capacity modes are available](CostOptimization_TableCapacityMode.md#CostOptimization_TableCapacityMode_Overview)
    + [When to select on-demand capacity mode](CostOptimization_TableCapacityMode.md#CostOptimization_TableCapacityMode_OnDemand)
    + [When to select provisioned capacity mode](CostOptimization_TableCapacityMode.md#CostOptimization_TableCapacityMode_Provisioned)
    + [Additional factors to consider when choosing a table capacity mode](CostOptimization_TableCapacityMode.md#CostOptimization_TableCapacityMode_AdditionalFactors)
  + [Evaluate your table's Application Auto Scaling settings](CostOptimization_AutoScalingSettings.md)
    + [Understanding your Application Auto Scaling settings](CostOptimization_AutoScalingSettings.md#CostOptimization_AutoScalingSettings_UnderProvisionedTables)
    + [How to identify tables with low target utilization (<=50%)](CostOptimization_AutoScalingSettings.md#CostOptimization_AutoScalingSettings_IdentifyLowUtilization)
    + [How to address workloads with seasonal variance](CostOptimization_AutoScalingSettings.md#CostOptimization_AutoScalingSettings_SeasonalVariance)
    + [How to address spiky workloads with unknown patterns](CostOptimization_AutoScalingSettings.md#CostOptimization_AutoScalingSettings_UnknownPatterns)
    + [How to address workloads with linked applications](CostOptimization_AutoScalingSettings.md#CostOptimization_AutoScalingSettings_BetweenRanges)
  + [Identify your unused resources to optimize costs in Amazon Keyspaces](CostOptimization_UnusedResources.md)
    + [How to identify unused resources](CostOptimization_UnusedResources.md#CostOptimization_UnusedResources_Identifying)
    + [Identifying unused table resources](CostOptimization_UnusedResources.md#CostOptimization_UnusedResources_Tables)
    + [Cleaning up unused table resources](CostOptimization_UnusedResources.md#CostOptimization_UnusedResources_Tables_Cleanup)
    + [Cleaning up unused point-in-time recovery (PITR) backups](CostOptimization_UnusedResources.md#CostOptimization_UnusedResources_Backups)
  + [Evaluate your table usage patterns to optimize performance and cost](CostOptimization_TableUsagePatterns.md)
    + [Perform fewer strongly-consistent read operations](CostOptimization_TableUsagePatterns.md#CostOptimization_TableUsagePatterns_StronglyConsistentReads)
    + [Enable Time to Live (TTL)](CostOptimization_TableUsagePatterns.md#CostOptimization_TableUsagePatterns_TTL)
  + [Evaluate your provisioned capacity for right-sized provisioning](CostOptimization_RightSizedProvisioning.md)
    + [How to retrieve consumption metrics from your Amazon Keyspaces tables](CostOptimization_RightSizedProvisioning.md#CostOptimization_RightSizedProvisioning_ConsumptionMetrics)
    + [How to identify under-provisioned Amazon Keyspaces tables](CostOptimization_RightSizedProvisioning.md#CostOptimization_RightSizedProvisioning_UnderProvisionedTables)
    + [How to identify over-provisioned Amazon Keyspaces tables](CostOptimization_RightSizedProvisioning.md#CostOptimization_RightSizedProvisioning_OverProvisionedTables)