How to Get Data from DynamoDB the Easy Way

What this post added

This post introduces a new DynamoDB source connector for Confluent Cloud, enabling Change Data Capture (CDC) from DynamoDB tables. It details two primary methods for achieving this: using DynamoDB Streams with AWS Lambda and a Kafka Producer, and leveraging Kinesis Data Streams. The post outlines the pros and cons of each method, focusing on fully managed services, end-to-end exactly-once semantics (with Kafka transactions), item-level ordering guarantees, and cost efficiency for the Lambda approach. It also highlights challenges with DynamoDB Streams' 24-hour retention limit and Kinesis' at-least-once delivery, and how Confluent's infinite storage and broader connector ecosystem address these limitations. The post provides a Python code snippet for the Lambda-based approach and discusses considerations for optimizing producer initialization and handling ephemeral Lambda functions.