Databases

Managed relational databases — Multi-AZ for availability, read replicas for scale, and RDS Proxy for connection management, without running the database server yourself.

The operational features that separate a toy RDS setup from a production one — connection pooling with RDS Proxy, safe major-version upgrades with Blue/Green Deployments, Multi-AZ DB Clusters, and Zero-ETL integration into Redshift for analytics.

AWS's fully managed NoSQL key-value and document database — single-digit-millisecond performance at any scale, with a fundamentally different design model than a relational database.

The DynamoDB features that support real production systems beyond basic reads and writes — DAX for microsecond caching, Streams for event-driven reactions to data changes, Global Tables for multi-region active-active replication, and backup/restore options.

Managed in-memory caching to take load off your primary database and serve hot data in sub-millisecond time.

A decision framework for RDS, DynamoDB, Aurora, ElastiCache, and Redshift — matching each database's design to your actual data and access patterns.