I need to perform a batch update to dynamo db in java. By update I mean that I have the primary key of an item and want to update a single attribute of the item. I tried first getting the items through batchGetItem, modifying it and performing a batchWriteItem. Even batchSave of dynamoDb mapper doesn't provide updates. I can use this method, but is there a way by which I can perform batchUpdate on the items directly without getting the whole item from the db ?
1 Answers
Based on Amazon documentation it is not possible, they ask to use UpdateItem
: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/amazondynamodb/latest/APIReference/API_BatchWriteItem.html
So you can either use your approach or execute parallel UpdateItem
in your application, at the end, as stated by Amazon docs, the benefits of using BatchWriteItem are mainly latency costs and complexity:
BatchWriteItem performs the specified put and delete operations in parallel, giving you the power of the thread pool approach without having to introduce complexity into your application.
Your approach may be faster (less latency) but a higher cost (need to read and write the whole item). Meanwhile UpdateItem
approach may be more complex to implement depending on the technology you use.