How to Get Data from DynamoDB the Easy Way

This post details a method for capturing changes from DynamoDB using DynamoDB Streams and AWS Lambda, and publishing those changes to Confluent. It outlines the challenges with DynamoDB Streams (24-hour retention) and Kinesis Data Streams (at-least-once delivery) and presents a solution using Lambda to achieve end-to-end exactly-once semantics with Kafka transactions. It also discusses optimizing producer initialization for ephemeral Lambda functions and the cost-efficiency of using DynamoDB Streams with Lambda.