Enhancing DynamoDB Performance Diagnostics: Introducing CloudWatch Contributor Insights for Throttled Keys
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is continuously dedicated to providing customers with powerful tools to monitor, manage, and optimize their cloud resources. We are pleased to announce a significant enhancement to Amazon DynamoDB’s observability capabilities with the introduction of a new CloudWatch Contributor Insights mode, specifically designed for throttled keys. This feature, announced on August 15, 2025, at 16:00, offers a more granular and focused approach to understanding and addressing read and write throttling within your DynamoDB tables.
For those managing high-throughput applications, understanding the root causes of throttling can be crucial for maintaining optimal performance and avoiding potential disruptions. While CloudWatch metrics have long provided valuable insights into DynamoDB’s overall health, identifying the specific keys contributing to throttling has historically required more in-depth investigation. This new Contributor Insights mode directly addresses this need, providing a streamlined and highly effective way to pinpoint the “hot” partitions that are experiencing throttling.
What is CloudWatch Contributor Insights?
Contributor Insights is a powerful feature within Amazon CloudWatch that helps you identify the top contributors to a particular metric. It works by analyzing log data and identifying patterns and anomalies, presenting you with actionable insights into the specific entities (in this case, DynamoDB partition keys) that are driving a particular metric.
The New Mode: Focus on Throttled Keys
Previously, users could leverage Contributor Insights to analyze various DynamoDB metrics. However, this latest update introduces a specialized mode within Contributor Insights, exclusively focused on throttled keys for both read and write capacity. This means that when your DynamoDB table experiences throttling, you can now quickly and efficiently drill down to see which specific partition keys are accumulating the most throttled requests.
Key Benefits and How it Works:
This specialized mode offers several significant advantages for DynamoDB users:
- Pinpoint Root Causes of Throttling: Instead of sifting through general throttling metrics, this mode directly highlights the partition keys that are consistently exceeding their provisioned throughput. This allows for rapid identification of “hot” partitions.
- Proactive Performance Tuning: By understanding which keys are causing throttling, you can take proactive steps to optimize your application’s data access patterns. This might involve strategies like:
- Re-evaluating your access patterns: Can requests be distributed more evenly across partitions?
- Implementing caching: Can frequently accessed data be cached to reduce direct DynamoDB reads?
- Considering adaptive capacity: DynamoDB’s adaptive capacity can automatically adjust provisioned throughput, but understanding the underlying key-level issues can inform further optimization.
- Reduced Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR): When throttling occurs, the ability to quickly identify the problematic keys significantly reduces the time spent diagnosing the issue, leading to faster resolution and improved application availability.
- Simplified Observability: The dedicated focus on throttled keys simplifies the monitoring process. You no longer need to manually correlate different metrics to understand the impact of specific keys on throttling.
- Cost Optimization: By effectively managing throttling and optimizing resource utilization, you can potentially avoid unnecessary provisioned throughput, leading to cost savings.
How to Utilize the New Feature:
To leverage this new capability, customers can configure Contributor Insights for their DynamoDB tables and select the new mode specifically designed for throttled keys. CloudWatch will then begin analyzing the relevant DynamoDB logs. You can access these insights through the CloudWatch console, where you will see a clear breakdown of the top contributing partition keys to read and write throttling.
In Conclusion:
Amazon DynamoDB’s new CloudWatch Contributor Insights mode for throttled keys represents a valuable step forward in providing customers with the tools they need to build and manage performant, reliable, and scalable applications on AWS. By offering a direct and focused view into the drivers of throttling, this enhancement empowers developers and operators to proactively address performance bottlenecks and ensure a seamless experience for their end-users. We encourage all DynamoDB users to explore this new feature and unlock a deeper understanding of their table’s performance.
Amazon DynamoDB now supports a CloudWatch Contributor Insights mode exclusively for throttled keys
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Amazon published ‘Amazon DynamoDB now supports a Cl oudWatch Contributor Insights mode exclusively for throttled keys’ at 2025-08-15 16:00. Please write a detailed article about this news in a polite tone with relevant information. Please reply in English with the article only.