DynamoDB is silly expensive

comparison.md

Intel 320 vs DynamoDB

As a note, if you find errors with the math below, please let me know.

This cost comparison only compares cost per I/O operation. It does not discuss storage or transit costs.

Intel 320

• Intel 320 series SSD, 300GB specs: http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/solid-state-drives/ssd-320-specification.html

At 4K, IOPS rates are advertised as:

• read: 39500/sec
• write: 23000/sec

Cost of an Intel 320 300GB drive: About $500

DynamoDB

Comparing the same IOPS advertised by Intel 320 300GB, but with DynamoDB pricing - Pricing specifics are here: http://aws.amazon.com/dynamodb/#pricing

• Read units: 39500 * 4 = 158000

• Read cost: (158000 / 50) * 0.01 (per hour) = $31.60/hour

• Monthly read cost: $31.60/hour * 24 hours * 30 days = $22752.00/month (every 30 days)

• Write units: 23000 * 4 = 92000

• Write cost: (92000 / 10) * 0.01 (per hour) = $92/hour

• Monthly write cost: $92/hour * 24 hours * 30 days = $66240/month (every 30 days)

Analysis

Amortizing the cost of hardware over 3 years is fairly common, so I will use that as a frame.

This puts the cost of the Intel SSD at $500 per 3 years.

The same IOPS performance on DynamoDB over 3 years (forgetting leap years) will cost:

• dynamodb total: $3,248,208 per 3 years
• intel total; $500 per 3 years.

separating reads and writes:

• dynamodb read cost: $31.60 * 24 * 365 * 3 = $830448
• dynamodb write cost: $92 * 24 * 365 * 3 = $2417760

Having started to ramp up close to $200 per month on dynamoDB, I've asked (and waiting for) Amazon to comment; meantime now rethinking as costs about to escalate. I invested in a migration and transformation from mysql to nosql but looking to host back on premise. AWS is expensive, I don't think this move is as stupid as it sounds - one rich corporate near me has done their research and decided on premise works better for them. I think the next few years, with graphene processors and the investment made by Apple, Google and Amazon in investment in open source technologies reduces the COO.

LOL

I think there's a lot of detail missing in this comparison that makes it seem more sensationalist than factual. The underlying point is valid that DynamoDB is expensive but a fairer comparison would be against say - an on-prem NoSQL database like MongoDB.

Typically, an enterprise would also care about:

• Security/encryption
• Availability considerations (replication, redundancy, failovers)
• Audit logging
• Observability - monitoring, logging, etc.
• Ops staff to maintain the above, infrastructure/hardware costs

These costs add up. I think often the reason why people rack up high costs on DynamoDB is that they're running workloads or queries that are just not suitable for the type of operations it supports efficiently. For example, if you're doing analytical queries turning into full table scans (or even hitting multiple indices), it will increase costs significantly.

Hi, friends. This gist is not a replacement for capacity planning. For amusement purposes only.

What did I just read?

thanks for clarifying that you are joking ;)

I know the comparison is a joke, but the title is accurate. It is silly expensive.
Btw you could count 3 SSD drives, since dynamo does replicate data across regions by default.

like comparing the price of a steak at the grocery store vs restaurant ;)

DynamoDB gets silly expensive indeed. Uber had to migrate majority of its data to it's in house alternative that ended up being 10x cheaper.