This page provides a guide to Establishing a Connection to Amazon DynamoDB in CData Cloud, as well as information on the available resources, and a reference to the available connection properties.

Connecting to Amazon DynamoDB

Establishing a Connection shows how to authenticate to Amazon DynamoDB and configure any necessary connection properties to create a database in CData Cloud

Accessing Data from CData Cloud Services

Accessing data from Amazon DynamoDB through the available standard services and CData Cloud administration is documented in further details in the CData Cloud Documentation.

Connect to Amazon DynamoDB by selecting the corresponding icon in the Database tab. Required properties are listed under Settings. The Advanced tab lists connection properties that are not typically required.

Connecting to DynamoDB

Specify the following to connect to data:

• Domain: Set this if you want to use a domain name you have associated with AWS.
• AWSRegion: Set this to the region where your Amazon DynamoDB data is hosted.

Authenticating to DynamoDB

Obtain AWS Keys

1. Sign into the IAM console.
2. In the navigation pane, select Users.
3. To create or manage the access keys for a user, select the user and then go to the Security Credentials tab.

1. Sign into the AWS Management console with the credentials for your root account.
2. Select your account name or number.
3. In the menu that displays, select My Security Credentials.
4. To manage or create root account access keys, click Continue to Security Credentials and expand the "Access Keys" section.

Root Credentials

To authenticate using account root credentials, set these configuration parameters:

• AuthScheme: AwsRootKeys.
• AWSAccessKey: The access key associated with the AWS root account.
• AWSSecretKey: The secret key associated with the AWS root account.

Note: Use of this authentication scheme is discouraged by Amazon for anything but simple tests. The account root credentials have the full permissions of the user, making this the least secure authentication method.

If multi-factor authentication is required, specify the following:

• CredentialsLocation: The location of the settings file where MFA credentials are saved. See the Credentials File Location page under Connection String Options for more information.
• MFASerialNumber: The serial number of the MFA device if one is being used.
• MFAToken: The temporary token available from your MFA device.

Note: If you want to control the duration of the temporary credentials, set the TemporaryTokenDuration property (default: 3600 seconds).

Temporary Credentials

To authenticate using temporary credentials, specify the following:

• AuthScheme: TemporaryCredentials.
• AWSAccessKey: The access key of the IAM user to assume the role for.
• AWSSecretKey: The secret key of the IAM user to assume the role for.
• AWSSessionToken: Your AWS session token, provided with your temporary credentials. For details, see AWS Identity and Access Management User Guide.

The Cloud can now request resources using the same permissions provided by long-term credentials (such as IAM user credentials) for the lifespan of the temporary credentials.

To authenticate using both temporary credentials and an IAM role, set all the parameters described above, and specify these additional parameters:

• AWSRoleARN: Specify the Role ARN for the role you'd like to authenticate with. This prompts the Cloud to retrieve credentials for the specified role.
• AWSExternalId (optional): Only required if you are assuming a role in another AWS account.

If multi-factor authentication is required, specify the following:

• CredentialsLocation: The location of the settings file where MFA credentials are saved. See the Credentials File Location page under Connection String Options for more information.
• MFASerialNumber: The serial number of the MFA device if one is being used.
• MFAToken: The temporary token available from your MFA device.

Note: If you want to control the duration of the temporary credentials, set the TemporaryTokenDuration property (default: 3600 seconds).

EC2 Instances

Set AuthScheme to AwsEC2Roles.

If you are using the Cloud from an EC2 Instance and have an IAM Role assigned to the instance, you can use the IAM Role to authenticate. Since the Cloud automatically obtains your IAM Role credentials and authenticates with them, it is not necessary to specify AWSAccessKey and AWSSecretKey.

If you are also using an IAM role to authenticate, you must additionally specify the following:

• AWSRoleARN: Specify the Role ARN for the role you'd like to authenticate with. This will cause the Cloud to attempt to retrieve credentials for the specified role.
• AWSExternalId (optional): Only required if you are assuming a role in another AWS account.

IMDSv2 Support

The Amazon DynamoDB Cloud now supports IMDSv2. Unlike IMDSv1, the new version requires an authentication token. Endpoints and response are the same in both versions.

In IMDSv2, the Amazon DynamoDB Cloud first attempts to retrieve the IMDSv2 metadata token and then uses it to call AWS metadata endpoints. If it is unable to retrieve the token, the Cloud reverts to IMDSv1.

AWS Web Identity

Set AuthScheme to AwsWebIdentity.

If you are using the Cloud from a container configured to assume role with web identity (such as a Pod in an EKS cluster with an OpenID Provider) or have obtained an identity token by authenticating with a web identity provider associated with an IAM role, you can exchange the web identity token and IAM role information for temporary security credentials to authenticate and access AWS services. The Cloud automatically obtains the credentials if the container has AWS_ROLE_ARN and AWS_WEB_IDENTITY_TOKEN_FILE specified in the environment variables. Alternatively, you can specify both AWSRoleARN and AWSWebIdentityToken to execute the AssumeRoleWithWebIdentity API operation and authenticate.

AWS IAM Roles

Set AuthScheme to AwsIAMRoles.

In many situations, it may be preferable to use an IAM role for authentication instead of the direct security credentials of an AWS root user. If you are specifying the AWSAccessKey and AWSSecretKey of an AWS root user, you may not use roles.

To authenticate as an AWS role, set these properties:

• AWSAccessKey: The access key of the IAM user to assume the role for.
• AWSSecretKey: The secret key of the IAM user to assume the role for.
• AWSRoleARN: Specify the Role ARN for the role you'd like to authenticate with. This will cause the Cloud to attempt to retrieve credentials for the specified role.
• AWSExternalId (optional): Only required if you are assuming a role in another AWS account.

If multi-factor authentication is required, specify the following:

• CredentialsLocation: The location of the settings file where MFA credentials are saved. See the Credentials File Location page under Connection String Options for more information.
• MFASerialNumber: The serial number of the MFA device if one is being used.
• MFAToken: The temporary token available from your MFA device.

Note: If you want to control the duration of the temporary credentials, set the TemporaryTokenDuration property (default: 3600 seconds).

ADFS

To connect to ADFS, set the AuthScheme to ADFS, and set these properties:

• User: The ADFS user.
• Password: The ADFS user's password.
• SSOLoginURL: The SSO provider's login url.

Example connection string:

AuthScheme=ADFS; AWSRegion=Ireland; [email protected]; Password=CH8WerW121235647iCa6; SSOLoginURL='https://adfs.domain.com'; AWSRoleArn=arn:aws:iam::1234:role/ADFS_SSO; AWSPrincipalArn=arn:aws:iam::1234:saml-provider/ADFSProvider; S3StagingDirectory=s3://athena/staging;

ADFS Integrated

The ADFS Integrated flow indicates you are connecting with the currently logged in Windows user credentials. To use the ADFS Integrated flow, do not specify the User and Password, but otherwise follow the same steps in the ADFS guide above.

Okta

To connect to Okta, set the AuthScheme to Okta, and set these properties:

• User: The Okta user.
• Password: The Okta user's password.
• SSOLoginURL: The SSO provider's login URL.

If you are using a trusted application or proxy that overrides the Okta client request OR configuring MFA, you must use combinations of SSOProperties to authenticate using Okta. Set any of the following, as applicable:

• APIToken: When authenticating a user via a trusted application or proxy that overrides the Okta client request context, set this to the API Token the customer created from the Okta organization.
• MFAType: If you have configured the MFA flow, set this to one of the following supported types: OktaVerify, Email, or SMS.
• MFAPassCode: If you have configured the MFA flow, set this to a valid passcode.
  If you set this to empty or an invalid value, the Cloud issues a one-time password challenge to your device or email. After the passcode is received, reopen the connection where the retrieved one-time password value is set to the MFAPassCode connection property.
• MFARememberDevice: True by default. Okta supports remembering devices when MFA is required. If remembering devices is allowed according to the configured authentication policies, the Cloud sends a device token to extend MFA authentication lifetime. If you do not want MFA to be remembered, set this variable to False.

Example connection string:

AuthScheme=Okta; AWSRegion=Ireland; [email protected]; Password=CH8WerW121235647iCa6; SSOLoginURL='https://cdata-us.okta.com/home/amazon_aws/0oa35m8arsAL5f5NrE6NdA356/272'; SSOProperties='ApiToken=01230GGG2ceAnm_tPAf4MhiMELXZ0L0N1pAYrO1VR-hGQSf;'; AWSRoleArn=arn:aws:iam::1234:role/Okta_SSO; AWSPrincipalARN=arn:aws:iam::1234:saml-provider/OktaProvider; S3StagingDirectory=s3://athena/staging;

To connect to PingFederate, set AuthScheme to PingFederate, and set these properties:

• User: The PingFederate user.
• Password: The PingFederate user's password.
• SSOLoginURL: The SSO provider's login url.
• AWSRoleARN (optional): If you have multiple role ARNs, specify the one you want to use for authorization.
• AWSPrincipalARN (optional): If you have multiple principal ARNs, specify the one you want to use for authorization.
• SSOExchangeUrl: The Partner Service Identifier URI configured in your PingFederate server instance under: SP Connections > SP Connection > WS-Trust > Protocol Settings. This should uniquely identify a PingFederate SP Connection, so it is a good idea to set it to your AWS SSO ACS URL. You can find it under AWS SSO > Settings > View Details next to the Authentication field.
• SSOProperties (optional): Authscheme=Basic if you want to include your username and password as an authorization header in requests to Amazon S3.

To enable mutual SSL authentication for SSOLoginURL, the WS-Trust STS endpoint, configure these SSOProperties:

• SSLClientCert
• SSLClientCertType
• SSLClientCertSubject
• SSLClientCertPassword

Example connection string:

authScheme=pingfederate;SSOLoginURL=https://mycustomserver.com:9033/idp/sts.wst;SSOExchangeUrl=https://us-east-1.signin.aws.amazon.com/platform/saml/acs/764ef411-xxxxxx;user=admin;password=PassValue;AWSPrincipalARN=arn:aws:iam::215338515180:saml-provider/pingFederate;AWSRoleArn=arn:aws:iam::215338515180:role/SSOTest2;

Credentials Files

You can use a credentials file to authenticate. Any configurations related to AccessKey/SecretKey authentication, temporary credentials, role authentication, or MFA can be used. To do so, set the following properties to authenticate:

• AuthScheme: AwsCredentialsFile.
• AWSCredentialsFile: The location of your credentials file.
• AWSCredentialsFileProfile (optional): The name of the profile you would like to use from the specified credentials file. If not specified, the default profile is used.

AWS Cognito Credentials

If you want to use the Cloud with a user registered in a User Pool in AWS Cognito, set the following properties to authenticate:

• AuthScheme: Set this to AwsCognitoSrp (recommended). You can also use AwsCognitoBasic.
• AWSCognitoRegion: Set this to the region of the User Pool.
• AWSUserPoolId: Set this to the User Pool Id.
• AWSUserPoolClientAppId: Set this to the User Pool Client App Id.
• AWSUserPoolClientAppSecret: Set this to the User Pool Client Secret.
• AWSIdentityPoolId: Set this to the Identity Pool Id of the Identity Pool that is linked with the User Pool.
• User: Set this to the username of the user registered in the User Pool.
• Password: Set this to the password of the user registered in the User Pool.

Inferring the Data Type

You can use the following properties to configure automatic data type detection, which is enabled by default.

• TypeDetectionScheme: You can use this property to enable or disable automatic type detection based on the value specified in RowScanDepth.
• RowScanDepth: This property determines the number of rows that will be scanned to determine column data types.
• IgnoreTypes: The data types that should be ignored and resolve to varchar data types. By default, Date, Time, and Datetime types are ignored. This is because Amazon DynamoDB does not support them as types. Any filtering of these columns may be done only as their original varchar data type.

Fine Tuning Data Access

You can use the following properties to gain greater control over Amazon DynamoDB API features and the strategies the Cloud uses to surface them:

• UseSimpleNames: Amazon DynamoDB supports attribute names with special characters that many database-oriented tools do not support.

  In addition, Amazon DynamoDB table names can include dots and dashes -- the Cloud interprets dots within table names as hierarchy separators that enable you to drill down to nested fields, similar to XPath.

  You can use this property to replace any nonalphanumeric character with an underscore.

• SeparatorCharacter: You can use this property to more easily access nested fields when Querying Documents and Lists; specify the hierarchy separator with this property. By default, this character is the '.' (dot) character.

Setting a Retry Interval

You can set the following properties to retry queries instead of returning a temporary error such as "maximum throughput exceeded":

• RetryWaitTime: The minimum number of milliseconds the Cloud will wait to retry a request.
• MaximumRequestRetries: The maximum number of times to retry a request.

The CData Cloud also has two seperate APIs that may be used depending on the query, PartiQL and Scan. The API that is used depends on the query that is executed.

PartiQL

Using Paging Effectively

You can use the Pagesize property to optimize use of your provisioned throughput, based on the size of your items and Amazon DynamoDB's 1MB page size. Set this property to the number of items to return.

Generally, a smaller page size reduces spikes in throughput that cause throttling. A smaller page size also inserts pauses between requests. This interval evens out the distribution of requests and allows more requests to be successful by avoiding throttling.

Scans

The ThreadCount connection property may be set to influence how many threads will be used when executing a Scan request. Using more threads will cause more memory to be taken up, but will result in faster results per thread. The default is 4. This works best on tables where a high or variable throughput is provisioned.

In cases where the maximum throughput for a table would be exceeded on a single thread, there is no benefit to using a Scan over the single threaded PartiQL API. The Amazon DynamoDB will simply throttle all threads until the maximum throughput is no longer exceeded.

We recommend using predefined roles for services rather than creating custom IAM policies. Predefined roles for Amazon DynamoDB are

• AmazonDynamoDBReadOnlyAccess-grants read-only access to DynamoDB resources through the AWS Management Console.
• AmazonDynamoDBFullAccess-grants full access to DynamoDB resources through the AWS Management Console.

          "Resource": [
              "arn:aws:dynamodb:us-east-1:987654321098:table/Customers",
              "arn:aws:dynamodb:us-east-1:987654321098:table/Orders"
          ]

      {
          "Effect": "Allow",
          "Action": [
              "dynamodb:DescribeTable"
          ],
          "Resource": [
              "arn:aws:dynamodb:us-east-1:987654321098:table/Customers",
              "arn:aws:dynamodb:us-east-1:987654321098:table/Orders"
          ]
      }

"Resource": "arn:aws:dynamodb:us-east-1:987654321098:table/*"

Amazon DynamoDB is a schemaless database that provides high performance, availability, and scalability. These features are not necessarily incompatible with a standards-compliant query language like SQL-92. In this section we will show various schemes that the Cloud offers to bridge the gap with relational SQL and a document database.

The Cloud models the schemaless Amazon DynamoDB tables into relational tables and translates SQL queries into Amazon DynamoDB queries to get the requested data.

The Automatic Schema Discovery scheme automatically finds the data types in a Amazon DynamoDB table by scanning a configured number of rows of the table. You can use RowScanDepth, FlattenArrays, and FlattenObjects to control the relational representation of the tables in Amazon DynamoDB.

The Cloud automatically infers a relational schema by inspecting a series of Amazon DynamoDB documents in a collection. You can use the RowScanDepth property to define the number of documents the Cloud will scan to do so. The columns identified during the discovery process depend on the FlattenArrays and FlattenObjects properties.

Flattening Objects

If FlattenObjects is set, all nested objects will be flattened into a series of columns. For example, consider the following document:

{
  id: 12,
  name: "Lohia Manufacturers Inc.",
  address: {street: "Main Street", city: "Chapel Hill", state: "NC"},
  offices: ["Chapel Hill", "London", "New York"],
  annual_revenue: 35,600,000
}

If FlattenObjects is not set, then the address.street, address.city, and address.state columns will not be broken apart. The address column of type string will instead represent the entire object. Its value would be {street: "Main Street", city: "Chapel Hill", state: "NC"}. See JSON Functions for more details on working with JSON aggregates.

You can change the separator character in the column name from a dot by setting SeparatorCharacter.

Flattening Arrays

The FlattenArrays property can be used to flatten array values into columns of their own. This is only recommended for arrays that are expected to be short, for example the coordinates below:

"coord": [ -73.856077, 40.848447 ]

It is best to leave other unbounded arrays as they are and piece out the data for them as needed using JSON Functions.

It is possible to retrieve an array of objects as if it were a separate table. Take the following JSON structure from the restaurants table for example:

{
  "restaurantid" : "30075445",
  "address" : {
    "building" : "1007",
    "coord" : [-73.856077, 40.848447],
    "street" : "Morris Park Ave",
    "zipcode" : "10462"
  },
  "borough" : "Bronx",
  "cuisine" : "Bakery",
  "grades" : [{
      "date" : 1393804800000,
      "grade" : "B",
      "score" : 2
    }, {
      "date" : 1378857600000,
      "grade" : "A",
      "score" : 6
    }, {
      "date" : 1358985600000,
      "grade" : "A",
      "score" : 10
    }],
  "name" : "Morris Park Bake Shop"
}

SELECT * FROM [restaurants.grades]

The grades array could also be nested some levels deeper. In that case, the same syntax should be used:

SELECT * FROM [restaurants.cuisine.bakery.grades]

{
  "restaurantid" : "30075445",
  "reviews": [
   {
    "grades": [
     {
      "date": 1393804800000,
      "score": 2,
      "grade": "B"
     },
     {
      "date": 1378857600000,
      "score": 6,
      "grade": "A"
     },
     {
      "date": 1358985600000,
      "score": 10,
      "grade": "A"
     }]
    }],
  "name" : "Morris Park Bake Shop"
}

SELECT * FROM [restaurants.reviews.\[0\].grades]

The Cloud can return JSON structures as column values. The Cloud enables you to use standard SQL functions to work with these JSON structures. The examples in this section use the following array:

[
     { "grade": "A", "score": 2 },
     { "grade": "A", "score": 6 },
     { "grade": "A", "score": 10 },
     { "grade": "A", "score": 9 },
     { "grade": "B", "score": 14 }
]

JSON_EXTRACT

SELECT Name, JSON_EXTRACT(grades,'[0].grade') AS Grade, JSON_EXTRACT(grades,'[0].score') AS Score FROM Students;

JSON_COUNT

SELECT Name, JSON_COUNT(grades,'[x]') AS NumberOfGrades FROM Students;

JSON_SUM

SELECT Name, JSON_SUM(score,'[x].score') AS TotalScore FROM Students;

JSON_MIN

SELECT Name, JSON_MIN(score,'[x].score') AS LowestScore FROM Students;

JSON_MAX

SELECT Name, JSON_MAX(score,'[x].score') AS HighestScore FROM Students;

DOCUMENT

The DOCUMENT function can be used to retrieve the entire document as a JSON string. See the following query and its result as an example:

SELECT DOCUMENT(*) FROM Customers;

{ "id": 12, "name": "Lohia Manufacturers Inc.", "address": { "street": "Main Street", "city": "Chapel Hill", "state": "NC"}, "offices": [ "Chapel Hill", "London", "New York" ], "annual_revenue": 35,600,000 }

Because Amazon DynamoDB is a NoSQL data source, queries need to be handled a bit differently than standard relational databases.

Value-Sensitive Queries

The lack of a required data type for a given column means that you could store different types of data in a single column. For instance, one row could have a String called EmailAddresses and another could have a StringSet also called EmailAddresses. For these and other kinds of cases, the Cloud largely determines what data type to use based on the values in the query.

For instance, say you have an Items table where the PartNumber could store either a String or a Number. To get back a part with the PartNumber of the number value 12345, you would issue the following query:

SELECT Name, Location, Quantity, PartNumber FROM Items WHERE PartNumber = 12345

Alternatively, the PartNumber could have been stored as the string "12345". To get back a part with the PartNumber of the literal string 12345, issue the following query:

SELECT Name, Location, Quantity, PartNumber FROM Items WHERE PartNumber = '12345'

Detected Column Data Type

If a value is not obvious based purely on the detected data type, the Cloud compares it to the autodetected column. For instance, if you want to insert a column called Coordinates into the Location table, your INSERT would look like:

INSERT INTO Locations (Address, Coordinates) VALUES ('123 Fake Street', '[40.7127, 74.0059]')

If a Coordinates column was not autodetected when scanning the Locations table, the data type of the inserted value is used.

In this case, we could still resolve that the INSERT is a NumberSet, but it will cost a bit more overhead to do this.

Count

Amazon DynamoDB supports 2 different methods of of using the COUNT aggregate function. To simply return the number of Items in you table, issue the following query:

SELECT COUNT(*) FROM MyTable

Issuing the below example queries will instead scan the full table for count:

SELECT COUNT(*) FROM MyTable WHERE MyInt > 10
SELECT COUNT(MyInt) FROM MyTable

Amazon DynamoDB documents and lists are supported with the CData Cloud. You can access documents and lists directly at the root level or use the '.' character as a hierarchy divider to drill down to documents and lists.

Reporting Values in Documents and Lists

When data types are autodetected, they are reported down to the lowest level that can be reliably detected. For instance, a document called Customer with a child called Address and a child on Address called Street would be represented by the column Customer.Address.Street.

However, this process does not apply to Lists since a list could have any number of entries. Once a List or a Set is detected, additional values are not reported as being available in the table schema.

Getting Back Unreported Values

If there are attributes that frequently do not have a value and thus are not autodetected, these can still be retrieved by specifying the correct path to them. For instance, to get the Special attribute from the Customer document:

SELECT [Customer.Address.Street], [Customer.Special] FROM MyTable

SELECT [MyList.0], [MyList.1.Email], [MyList.1.Age] FROM MyTable

Inserting Documents and Lists

INSERTs in Amazon DynamoDB require that the full object is specified. Insert a document or list at the root. Pass in the full JSON aggregate. For instance:

INSERT INTO MyTable (PrimaryKey, EmailAddresses, Address, MyList) VALUES ('uniquekey', '["[email protected]", "[email protected]"]', '{"Street":"123 Fake Street", "City":"Chapel Hill", "Zip":"27713"}', '[{"S":"somestr"},{"NS":[1,2]},{"N":4}]')

Updating Documents and Lists

Updates are supported using the same syntax that is available during selects. Documents and Lists can be specified using the '.' character to specify hierarchy. For instance:

UPDATE MyTable SET [EmailAddress.0]='[email protected]', [EmailAddress.1]='[email protected]', [Address.Street]='123 Fake Street', [Address.City]='Chapel Hill', [Address.Zip]='27713', [MyList.0]='somestr', [MyList.1]='[1,2]', [MyList.2]=4 WHERE PrimaryKey='uniquekey'

Customizing the SSL Configuration

By default, the Cloud attempts to negotiate TLS with the server. The server certificate is validated against the default system trusted certificate store. You can override how the certificate gets validated using the SSLServerCert connection property.

To specify another certificate, see the SSLServerCert connection property.

Connecting Through a Firewall or Proxy

HTTP Proxies

To authenticate to an HTTP proxy, set the following:

• ProxyServer: the hostname or IP address of the proxy server that you want to route HTTP traffic through.
• ProxyPort: the TCP port that the proxy server is running on.
• ProxyAuthScheme: the authentication method the Cloud uses when authenticating to the proxy server.
• ProxyUser: the username of a user account registered with the proxy server.
• ProxyPassword: the password associated with the ProxyUser.

Other Proxies

Set the following properties:

• To use a proxy-based firewall, set FirewallType, FirewallServer, and FirewallPort.
• To tunnel the connection, set FirewallType to TUNNEL.
• To authenticate, specify FirewallUser and FirewallPassword.
• To authenticate to a SOCKS proxy, additionally set FirewallType to SOCKS5.

Amazon DynamoDB is a highly scalable NoSQL cloud database that works differently than a regular database. The CData Cloud enables you to access Amazon DynamoDB data using a standard database-like interface. The following topics describe how we model schemaless Amazon DynamoDB tables as regular Tables and Stored Procedures.

Tables

The list of Tables is dynamically retrieved from your Amazon DynamoDB account. You can use the CreateTable stored procedure to create a table, or you can create tables using the Amazon Web Services Admin Console.

The Cloud can dynamically detect table schemas at connection time. See Automatic Schema Discovery for more information. This method is useful if the structure of your data is volatile.

Stored Procedures

The list of tables is dynamically retrieved from your Amazon DynamoDB account. You can use the stored procedure to create a new table, or you can create a table using the Amazon Web Services Admin Console.

Because DynamoDB tables are partitioned based on their key, you should take care in selecting a proper key based on the query requirements of your table. Refer to the documentation for DynamoDB for more information about using best practices to model data in DynamoDB tables. DynamoDB supports two types of primary keys:

• Hash Primary Key: This is a single-column key.
• Hash and Range Primary Key: This is a two-column key that includes a hash column and a range column.

Since Amazon DynamoDB tables are schemaless, the Cloud offers the following two mechanisms to uncover the schema.

Dynamic Schemas

The columns of a table are dynamically determined by scanning data in the first few rows. You can adjust the number of rows that are used by modifying the RowScanDepth property. In addition to the name of the column, the row scan also determines the data type. The following table shows how the different data types supported by Amazon DynamoDB are modeled in the Cloud.

Static Schemas

Instead of using dynamically discovered schemas, you can define your own schemas. This will give you more control over the projected columns and also enable you to use other data types such as boolean, datetime, etc. Refer to the CreateSchema Stored Procedure in order to create your own schema. You can simply specify the FileName (fullpath) and TableName of the new schema file, which should match with the name of the Amazon DynamoDB table, and edit the column listing to use it for your own table.

Schemaless Operations

While the schema of the table is necessary to report metadata, data may be selected, inserted, updated, or deleted from columns that do not exist in the schema. Columns that do not already exist in the table schema will have their data types dynamically determined based on the data that is specified. See DynamoDB Queries for more information.

Stored procedures are function-like interfaces that extend the functionality of the Cloud beyond simple SELECT/INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE operations with Amazon DynamoDB.

Stored procedures accept a list of parameters, perform their intended function, and then return any relevant response data from Amazon DynamoDB, along with an indication of whether the procedure succeeded or failed.

CData Cloud - Amazon DynamoDB Stored Procedures

Creates a new table in DynamoDB with specified partition and sort keys, along with optional billing mode and capacity settings.

Input

Result Set Columns

You can query the system tables described in this section to access schema information, information on data source functionality, and batch operation statistics.

Schema Tables

The following tables return database metadata for Amazon DynamoDB:

• sys_catalogs: Lists the available databases.
• sys_schemas: Lists the available schemas.
• sys_tables: Lists the available tables and views.
• sys_tablecolumns: Describes the columns of the available tables and views.
• sys_procedures: Describes the available stored procedures.
• sys_procedureparameters: Describes stored procedure parameters.
• sys_keycolumns: Describes the primary and foreign keys.
• sys_indexes: Describes the available indexes.

Data Source Tables

The following tables return information about how to connect to and query the data source:

• sys_connection_props: Returns information on the available connection properties.
• sys_sqlinfo: Describes the SELECT queries that the Cloud can offload to the data source.

Query Information Tables

The following table returns query statistics for data modification queries, including batch operations::

• sys_identity: Returns information about batch operations or single updates.

Lists the available databases.

The following query retrieves all databases determined by the connection string:

SELECT * FROM sys_catalogs

Columns

Lists the available schemas.

The following query retrieves all available schemas:

          SELECT * FROM sys_schemas
          

Columns

Lists the available tables.

The following query retrieves the available tables and views:

          SELECT * FROM sys_tables
          

Columns

Describes the columns of the available tables and views.

The following query returns the columns and data types for the Account table:

SELECT ColumnName, DataTypeName FROM sys_tablecolumns WHERE TableName='Account' 

Columns

Lists the available stored procedures.

The following query retrieves the available stored procedures:

          SELECT * FROM sys_procedures
          

Columns

Describes stored procedure parameters.

The following query returns information about all of the input parameters for the CreateSchema stored procedure:

SELECT * FROM sys_procedureparameters WHERE ProcedureName='CreateSchema' AND Direction=1 OR Direction=2

Columns

Describes the primary and foreign keys.

The following query retrieves the primary key for the Account table:

         SELECT * FROM sys_keycolumns WHERE IsKey='True' AND TableName='Account' 
          

Columns

Describes the foreign keys.

The following query retrieves all foreign keys which refer to other tables:

         SELECT * FROM sys_foreignkeys WHERE ForeignKeyType = 'FOREIGNKEY_TYPE_IMPORT'
          

Columns

Describes the primary keys.

The following query retrieves the primary keys from all tables and views:

         SELECT * FROM sys_primarykeys
          

Columns

Describes the available indexes. By filtering on indexes, you can write more selective queries with faster query response times.

The following query retrieves all indexes that are not primary keys:

          SELECT * FROM sys_indexes WHERE IsPrimary='false'
          

Columns

Returns information on the available connection properties and those set in the connection string.

The following query retrieves all connection properties that have been set in the connection string or set through a default value:

SELECT * FROM sys_connection_props WHERE Value <> ''

Columns

Describes the SELECT query processing that the Cloud can offload to the data source.

See SQL Compliance for SQL syntax details.

Discovering the Data Source's SELECT Capabilities

Below is an example data set of SQL capabilities. Some aspects of SELECT functionality are returned in a comma-separated list if supported; otherwise, the column contains NO.

The following query retrieves the operators that can be used in the WHERE clause:

SELECT * FROM sys_sqlinfo WHERE Name = 'SUPPORTED_OPERATORS'

Columns

Returns information about attempted modifications.

The following query retrieves the Ids of the modified rows in a batch operation:

         SELECT * FROM sys_identity
          

Columns

Describes the available system information.

The following query retrieves all columns:

SELECT * FROM sys_information

Columns

The connection string properties are the various options that can be used to establish a connection. This section provides a complete list of the options you can configure in the connection string for this provider. Click the links for further details.

Connection

AWS Authentication

SSO

SSL

Logging

Schema

Miscellaneous

This section provides a complete list of the Connection properties you can configure in the connection string for this provider.

When this property is set to true, AWSLakeFormation service will be used to retrieve temporary credentials, which enforce access policies against the user based on the configured IAM role. The service can be used when authenticating through OKTA, ADFS, AzureAD, PingFederate, while providing a SAML assertion.

Data Type

bool

Default Value

false

Remarks

When this property is set to true, AWSLakeFormation service will be used to retrieve temporary credentials, which enforce access policies against the user based on the configured IAM role. The service can be used when authenticating through OKTA, ADFS, AzureAD, PingFederate, while providing a SAML assertion.

This section provides a complete list of the AWS Authentication properties you can configure in the connection string for this provider.

Specifies the type of authentication to use when connecting to Amazon DynamoDB. If this property is left blank, the default authentication is used.

Possible Values

Data Type

string

Default Value

"AwsRootKeys"

Remarks

• TemporaryCredentials: Authenticate using temporary security credentials alongside a session token.
• AwsRootKeys: Authenticate using the root user access key and secret, to test something quickly. (Production use cases are encouraged to use something with narrowed permissions.)
• AwsIAMRoles: Authenticate using IAM Roles.
• AwsEC2Roles: Automatically use IAM Roles assigned to the EC2 machine where Cloud is currently running.
• Okta: Set to use a single sign on connection with OKTA as the identity provider.
• ADFS: Set to use a single sign on connection with ADFS as the identity provider.
• PingFederate: Set to use a single sign on connection with PingFederate as the identity provider.
• AwsCredentialsFile: Set to use a credential file for authentication.
• AwsCognitoSrp: Set to use Cognito based authentication. This is recommended over AwsCognitoBasic because this option does NOT send the password to the server for authentication, instead it uses the SRP protocol.
• AwsCognitoBasic: Set to use Cognito based authentication.

Specifies your AWS domain name. Use this property to set a custom domain name if your organization has associated one with AWS.

Data Type

string

Default Value

"amazonaws.com"

Remarks

This property specifies the AWS domain name to use when connecting to services. If your organization uses a custom AWS domain, provide it here. If you do not have a unique domain, use the default value, "amazonaws.com". Ensure the domain name matches your AWS setup to avoid connection errors.

Specifies your AWS account access key. This value is accessible from your AWS security credentials page.

Data Type

string

Default Value

""

Remarks

To find your AWS account access key:

1. Sign into the AWS Management console with the credentials for your root account.
2. Select your account name or number.
3. Select My Security Credentials in the menu.
4. Click Continue to Security Credentials.
5. To view or manage root account access keys, expand the Access Keys section.

Your AWS account secret key. This value is accessible from your AWS security credentials page.

Data Type

string

Default Value

""

Remarks

Your AWS account secret key. This value is accessible from your AWS security credentials page:

1. Sign into the AWS Management console with the credentials for your root account.
2. Select your account name or number and select My Security Credentials in the menu that is displayed.
3. Click Continue to Security Credentials and expand the Access Keys section to manage or create root account access keys.

The Amazon Resource Name of the role to use when authenticating.

Data Type

string

Default Value

""

Remarks

When authenticating outside of AWS, it is common to use a Role for authentication instead of your direct AWS account credentials. Entering the AWSRoleARN will cause the CData Cloud to perform a role based authentication instead of using the AWSAccessKey and AWSSecretKey directly. The AWSAccessKey and AWSSecretKey must still be specified to perform this authentication. You cannot use the credentials of an AWS root user when setting RoleARN. The AWSAccessKey and AWSSecretKey must be those of an IAM user.

The hosting region for your Amazon Web Services.

Possible Values

Data Type

string

Default Value

"NORTHERNVIRGINIA"

Remarks

The hosting region for your Amazon Web Services. Available values are OHIO, NORTHERNVIRGINIA, NORTHERNCALIFORNIA, OREGON, CAPETOWN, HONGKONG, HYDERABAD, JAKARTA, MALAYSIA, MELBOURNE, MUMBAI, OSAKA, SEOUL, SINGAPORE, SYDNEY, TOKYO, CENTRAL, CALGARY, BEIJING, NINGXIA, FRANKFURT, IRELAND, LONDON, MILAN, PARIS, SPAIN, STOCKHOLM, ZURICH, TELAVIV, BAHRAIN, UAE, SAOPAULO, GOVCLOUDEAST, GOVCLOUDWEST, ISOLATEDUSEAST, ISOLATEDUSEASTB, ISOLATEDUSWEST, and ISOLATEDEUWEST.

Your AWS session token.

Data Type

string

Default Value

""

Remarks

Your AWS session token. This value can be retrieved in different ways. See this link for more info.

A unique identifier that might be required when you assume a role in another account.

Data Type

string

Default Value

""

Remarks

A unique identifier that might be required when you assume a role in another account.

The serial number of the MFA device if one is being used.

Data Type

string

Default Value

""

Remarks

You can find the device for an IAM user by going to the AWS Management Console and viewing the user's security credentials. For virtual devices, this is actually an Amazon Resource Name (such as arn:aws:iam::123456789012:mfa/user).

The temporary token available from your MFA device.

Data Type

string

Default Value

""

Remarks

If MFA is required, this value will be used along with the MFASerialNumber to retrieve temporary credentials to login. The temporary credentials available from AWS will only last up to 1 hour by default (see TemporaryTokenDuration). Once the time is up, the connection must be updated to specify a new MFA token so that new credentials may be obtained.

The amount of time (in seconds) a temporary token will last.

Data Type

string

Default Value

"3600"

Remarks

Temporary tokens are used with both MFA and Role based authentication. Temporary tokens will eventually time out, at which time a new temporary token must be obtained. For situations where MFA is not used, this is not a big deal. The CData Cloud will internally request a new temporary token once the temporary token has expired.

However, for MFA required connection, a new MFAToken must be specified in the connection to retrieve a new temporary token. This is a more intrusive issue since it requires an update to the connection by the user. The maximum and minimum that can be specified will depend largely on the connection being used.

For Role based authentication, the minimum duration is 900 seconds (15 minutes) while the maximum if 3600 (1 hour). Even if MFA is used with role based authentication, 3600 is still the maximum.

For MFA authentication by itself (using an IAM User or root user), the minimum is 900 seconds (15 minutes), the maximum is 129600 (36 hours).

The hosting region for AWS Cognito.

Possible Values

Data Type

string

Default Value

"NORTHERNVIRGINIA"

Remarks

The hosting region for AWS Cognito. Available values are OHIO, NORTHERNVIRGINIA, NORTHERNCALIFORNIA, OREGON, CAPETOWN, HONGKONG, HYDERABAD, JAKARTA, MALAYSIA, MELBOURNE, MUMBAI, OSAKA, SEOUL, SINGAPORE, SYDNEY, TOKYO, CENTRAL, CALGARY, BEIJING, NINGXIA, FRANKFURT, IRELAND, LONDON, MILAN, PARIS, SPAIN, STOCKHOLM, ZURICH, TELAVIV, BAHRAIN, UAE, SAOPAULO, GOVCLOUDEAST, GOVCLOUDWEST, ISOLATEDUSEAST, ISOLATEDUSEASTB, ISOLATEDUSWEST, and ISOLATEDEUWEST.

The User Pool Id.

Data Type

string

Default Value

""

Remarks

You can find this in AWS Cognito -> Manage User Pools -> select your user pool -> General settings -> Pool Id.

The User Pool Client App Id.

Data Type

string

Default Value

""

Remarks

You can find this in AWS Cognito -> Manage Identity Pools -> select your user pool -> General settings -> App clients -> App client Id.

Optional. The User Pool Client App Secret.

Data Type

string

Default Value

""

Remarks

You can find this in AWS Cognito -> Manage Identity Pools -> select your user pool -> General settings -> App clients -> App client secret.

The Identity Pool Id.

Data Type

string

Default Value

""

Remarks

You can find this in AWS Cognito -> Manage Identity Pools -> select your identity pool -> Edit identity pool -> Identity Pool Id

The OAuth 2.0 access token or OpenID Connect ID token that is provided by an identity provider.

Data Type

string

Default Value

""

Remarks

The OAuth 2.0 access token or OpenID Connect ID token that is provided by an identity provider. An application can get this token by authenticating a user with a web identity provider. If not specified, the value for this connection property is automatically obtained from the value of the 'AWS_WEB_IDENTITY_TOKEN_FILE' environment variable.

This section provides a complete list of the SSO properties you can configure in the connection string for this provider.

The IDP user used to authenticate the IDP via SSO.

Data Type

string

Default Value

""

Remarks

Together with Password, this field is used to authenticate in SSO connections against the Amazon DynamoDB server.

The password used to authenticate the IDP user via SSO.

Data Type

string

Default Value

""

Remarks

The User and Password are together used in SSO connections to authenticate with the server.

The identity provider's login URL.

Data Type

string

Default Value

""

Remarks

The identity provider's login URL.

Additional properties required to connect to the identity provider in a semicolon-separated list.

Data Type

string

Default Value

""

Remarks

Additional properties required to connect to the identity provider in a semicolon-separated list. SSOProperties is used in conjunction with the the AWSRoleARN and AWSPrincipalARN. The following section provides an example using the OKTA identity provider.

ADFS

To connect to ADFS, set the AuthScheme to ADFS, and set these properties:

• User: The ADFS user.
• Password: The ADFS user's password.
• SSOLoginURL: The SSO provider's login url.

Example connection string:

AuthScheme=ADFS; AWSRegion=Ireland; [email protected]; Password=CH8WerW121235647iCa6; SSOLoginURL='https://adfs.domain.com'; AWSRoleArn=arn:aws:iam::1234:role/ADFS_SSO; AWSPrincipalArn=arn:aws:iam::1234:saml-provider/ADFSProvider; S3StagingDirectory=s3://athena/staging;

ADFS Integrated

The ADFS Integrated flow indicates you are connecting with the currently logged in Windows user credentials. To use the ADFS Integrated flow, do not specify the User and Password, but otherwise follow the same steps in the ADFS guide above.

Okta

To connect to Okta, set the AuthScheme to Okta, and set these properties:

• User: The Okta user.
• Password: The Okta user's password.
• SSOLoginURL: The SSO provider's login URL.

If you are using a trusted application or proxy that overrides the Okta client request OR configuring MFA, you must use combinations of SSOProperties to authenticate using Okta. Set any of the following, as applicable:

• APIToken: When authenticating a user via a trusted application or proxy that overrides the Okta client request context, set this to the API Token the customer created from the Okta organization.
• MFAType: If you have configured the MFA flow, set this to one of the following supported types: OktaVerify, Email, or SMS.
• MFAPassCode: If you have configured the MFA flow, set this to a valid passcode.
  If you set this to empty or an invalid value, the Cloud issues a one-time password challenge to your device or email. After the passcode is received, reopen the connection where the retrieved one-time password value is set to the MFAPassCode connection property.
• MFARememberDevice: True by default. Okta supports remembering devices when MFA is required. If remembering devices is allowed according to the configured authentication policies, the Cloud sends a device token to extend MFA authentication lifetime. If you do not want MFA to be remembered, set this variable to False.

Example connection string:

AuthScheme=Okta; AWSRegion=Ireland; [email protected]; Password=CH8WerW121235647iCa6; SSOLoginURL='https://cdata-us.okta.com/home/amazon_aws/0oa35m8arsAL5f5NrE6NdA356/272'; SSOProperties='ApiToken=01230GGG2ceAnm_tPAf4MhiMELXZ0L0N1pAYrO1VR-hGQSf;'; AWSRoleArn=arn:aws:iam::1234:role/Okta_SSO; AWSPrincipalARN=arn:aws:iam::1234:saml-provider/OktaProvider; S3StagingDirectory=s3://athena/staging;

The URL used for consuming the SAML response and exchanging it for service specific credentials.

Data Type

string

Default Value

""

Remarks

The CData Cloud will use the URL specified here to consume a SAML response and exchange it for service specific credentials. The retrieved credentials are the final piece during the SSO connection that are used to communicate with Amazon DynamoDB.

This section provides a complete list of the SSL properties you can configure in the connection string for this provider.

Specifies the certificate to be accepted from the server when connecting using TLS/SSL.

Data Type

string

Default Value

""

Remarks

If using a TLS/SSL connection, this property can be used to specify the TLS/SSL certificate to be accepted from the server. Any other certificate that is not trusted by the machine is rejected.

This property can take the following forms:

If not specified, any certificate trusted by the machine is accepted.

Use '*' to signify to accept all certificates. Note that this is not recommended due to security concerns.

This section provides a complete list of the Logging properties you can configure in the connection string for this provider.

Specifies the verbosity level of the log file, which controls the amount of detail logged. Supported values range from 1 to 5.

Data Type

string

Default Value

"1"

Remarks

This property defines the level of detail the Cloud includes in the log file. Higher verbosity levels increase the detail of the logged information, but may also result in larger log files and slower performance due to the additional data being captured.

The default verbosity level is 1, which is recommended for regular operation. Higher verbosity levels are primarily intended for debugging purposes. For more information on each level, refer to Logging.

When combined with the LogModules property, Verbosity can refine logging to specific categories of information.

This section provides a complete list of the Schema properties you can configure in the connection string for this provider.

Optional setting that restricts the schemas reported to a subset of all available schemas. For example, BrowsableSchemas=SchemaA,SchemaB,SchemaC .

Data Type

string

Default Value

""

Remarks

Listing all available database schemas can take extra time, thus degrading performance. Providing a list of schemas in the connection string saves time and improves performance.

This section provides a complete list of the Miscellaneous properties you can configure in the connection string for this provider.

Specifies whether the provider should automatically detect and use secondary indexes based on the query criteria.

Data Type

bool

Default Value

true

Remarks

This property controls the automatic detection of secondary indexes, which can optimize data selection in DynamoDB tables. By default, this property is set to true, enabling the provider to analyze the query criteria and choose an appropriate secondary index automatically.

• Disabling Automatic Detection: Set this property to false if automatic index selection is not desired, such as when the query logic does not align with the detected index or when you prefer manual control over index usage.
• Manual Index Selection: Use the SecondaryIndexName pseudo-column in your query to specify the index you want to use, bypassing the automatic detection logic.

This property is useful for scenarios where the default behavior does not align with your query optimization strategy, giving you flexibility to fine-tune index usage for your DynamoDB tables.

This property flattens nested array elements into individual columns. By default, nested arrays are returned as JSON strings. Set this property to the number of elements to extract from nested arrays.

Data Type

string

Default Value

""

Remarks

Use this property to extract elements from nested arrays and represent them as individual columns. This property is useful for simplifying the representation of short arrays in tabular output. The extracted elements are assigned column names with their zero-based index appended. Any remaining elements in the array are ignored. For example, the following array is flattened into two columns when FlattenArrays is set to 2:

 ["FLOW-MATIC", "LISP", "COBOL"]

Flattening longer arrays may result in unused elements being discarded, so it is recommended for arrays expected to contain a small number of items.

Specifies whether nested object properties are flattened into individual columns.

Data Type

bool

Default Value

true

Remarks

When this property is set to true, object properties are extracted as separate columns. When it is set to false, nested objects within arrays are represented as JSON-formatted strings. Flattening nested objects into individual columns simplifies working with structured data. When enabled, the provider appends the property name to the parent object name to generate column names. This is useful for tabularizing predictable and manageable object structures.

For deeply nested or large JSON objects, consider the performance implications of flattening, as excessive flattening may create an unmanageable number of columns. For objects with unpredictable properties or varying schemas, leaving this property disabled may provide a more flexible representation.

For example, you can flatten the nested objects below at connection time:

[
     { "grade": "A", "score": 2 },
     { "grade": "A", "score": 6 },
     { "grade": "A", "score": 10 },
     { "grade": "A", "score": 9 },
     { "grade": "B", "score": 14 }
]

When FlattenObjects is set to true and FlattenArrays is set to 1, the preceding array is flattened into the following table:

Specifies whether the provider should dynamically scan query result sets for additional metadata. Set to true to enable scanning or false to use a static metadata structure.

Data Type

bool

Default Value

true

Remarks

When enabled, this property allows the provider to dynamically analyze query result sets for additional metadata, ensuring the result schema reflects any changes or variations in the queried data. This property is useful when working with data sources where schema details may vary or are not fully known in advance.

Disabling this property preserves a static metadata structure, which may improve performance when querying data with a consistent schema. Use this property based on the predictability of your data source and performance considerations.

Specifies which data types should be ignored and reported as strings.

Data Type

string

Default Value

"Datetime,Date,Time"

Remarks

This property allows you to exclude specific data types from being processed as their native types. When a type is ignored, it is treated as a string. By default, Datetime, Date, and Time are ignored and reported as string values instead of their native types.

This property is useful when compatibility issues or downstream processing requirements necessitate treating certain types as text. For example, applications that do not handle Time data types may benefit from converting them to strings. Note: Changes to this property take effect on the next connection.

Specifies the maximum number of times the provider retries a request when a temporary issue is detected. Temporary issues include network interruptions, transient errors, or exceeding operational thresholds.

Data Type

string

Default Value

"4"

Remarks

This property controls the number of retries the driver attempts when a temporary issue, such as network instability or rate limits, is encountered. For each retry, the Cloud follows an exponential backoff strategy: the wait time between retries starts at the value specified by RetryWaitTime and doubles with each subsequent retry until the maximum number of retries is reached.

For example, if RetryWaitTime is set to 2 seconds and MaximumRequestRetries is set to 5, the Cloud waits as follows: 0 seconds (initial attempt), 2 seconds, 4 seconds, 8 seconds, 16 seconds, and 32 seconds.

This property is useful in scenarios where temporary issues are expected, such as high-latency networks or environments with strict API quotas.

Specifies the maximum rows returned for queries without aggregation or GROUP BY.

Data Type

int

Default Value

-1

Remarks

This property sets an upper limit on the number of rows the Cloud returns for queries that do not include aggregation or GROUP BY clauses. This limit ensures that queries do not return excessively large result sets by default.

When a query includes a LIMIT clause, the value specified in the query takes precedence over the MaxRows setting. If MaxRows is set to "-1", no row limit is enforced unless a LIMIT clause is explicitly included in the query.

This property is useful for optimizing performance and preventing excessive resource consumption when executing queries that could otherwise return very large datasets.

Specifies the maximum number of items provider evaluates per API request. The default value, -1, allows the server to calculate the page size automatically.

Data Type

int

Default Value

-1

Remarks

Note that this limit applies to the number of items evaluated, not the number of matching items returned. If the dataset size exceeds 1 MB or the number of evaluated items reaches the specified page size, the operation stops and returns the matching results along with a pagination token to retrieve the remaining data. Set this property to a specific value to control the size of each API request and optimize performance. Adjust this property based on your application’s performance and memory requirements.

Specifies the pseudocolumns to expose as table columns. Use the format 'TableName=ColumnName;TableName=ColumnName'. The default is an empty string, which disables this property.

Data Type

string

Default Value

""

Remarks

This property allows you to define which pseudocolumns the Cloud exposes as table columns.

To specify individual pseudocolumns, use the following format: "Table1=Column1;Table1=Column2;Table2=Column3"

To include all pseudocolumns for all tables use: "*=*"

Specifies the mode used by the provider to retrieve results from Amazon DynamoDB.

Possible Values

Data Type

string

Default Value

"Adaptive"

Remarks

This property determines the query execution strategy for retrieving results from DynamoDB:

• Adaptive: Automatically selects the best query mode based on the SQL statement filters and ThreadCount.
• PartiQL: Translates supported SQL statements into their PartiQL equivalents for execution.
• SCAN: Performs a full table scan, using parallel threads as specified by ThreadCount.

Use Adaptive for optimal performance, as it dynamically selects the most efficient query mode. Choose PartiQL for precise query translation or SCAN when a complete table scan is required.

Specifies the minimum number of milliseconds the provider waits before retrying a request. The wait time doubles with each retry.

Data Type

string

Default Value

"2000"

Remarks

This property defines the base wait time, in milliseconds, between retries when a temporary issue is detected like a network failures or rate-limiting. With each retry, the wait time doubles, following an exponential backoff strategy.

The total number of retries is controlled by the MaximumRequestRetries property. For example, if RetryWaitTime is set to 2000 milliseconds and MaximumRequestRetries is set to 3, the driver waits 2000, 4000, and 8000 milliseconds before subsequent retries.

The maximum number of rows to scan to look for the columns available in a table.

Data Type

int

Default Value

50

Remarks

The columns in a table must be determined by scanning table rows. This value determines the maximum number of rows that will be scanned.

Setting a high value may decrease performance. Setting a low value may prevent the data type from being determined properly, especially when there is null data.

Specifies the character or characters used to denote hierarchy in flattened structures, such as Maps and List attributes in DynamoDB.

Data Type

string

Default Value

"."

Remarks

This property defines the delimiter used to represent hierarchical relationships in flattened structures within DynamoDB. For example, when SeparatorCharacter is set to ".", an attribute named address.city indicates that address is a parent attribute with a child attribute called city.

If your data includes attribute names containing the specified separator, for example, a period (.), you should choose a different SeparatorCharacter to prevent ambiguity in column naming. This property is useful for handling complex, nested data structures where clear delineation of hierarchy is required.

Specifies the number of threads to allocate for parallel scans during data selection. A value of 1 disables parallel scanning, while higher values increase parallelism.

Data Type

string

Default Value

"5"

Remarks

Parallel scans allow the retrieval process to run across multiple threads, improving performance when scanning large datasets in Amazon DynamoDB. The number of threads specified by ThreadCount determines how data is split for processing. While increasing ThreadCount can significantly speed up scans, it also accelerates the consumption of read units for the table.

Higher values for ThreadCount require more system resources, such as CPU cores and bandwidth. Excessive parallelism may exhaust read capacity units quickly, potentially incurring additional costs or impacting other operations on the table. It is important to evaluate your system’s available resources and the read units allocated to your DynamoDB tables before adjusting this property.

Specifies the maximum time, in seconds, that the provider waits for a server response before throwing a timeout error. The default is 60 seconds. Set to 0 to disable the timeout.

Data Type

int

Default Value

60

Remarks

This property controls the maximum time, in seconds, that the Cloud waits for an operation to complete before canceling it. If the timeout period expires before the operation finishes, the Cloud cancels the operation and throws an exception.

The timeout applies to each individual communication with the server rather than the entire query or operation. For example, a query could continue running beyond 60 seconds if each paging call completes within the timeout limit.

Setting this property to 0 disables the timeout, allowing operations to run indefinitely until they succeed or fail due to other conditions such as server-side timeouts, network interruptions, or resource limits on the server. Use this property cautiously to avoid long-running operations that could degrade performance or result in unresponsive behavior.

Specifies the method used to determine the data type of columns.

Possible Values

Data Type

string

Default Value

"RowScan"

Remarks

This property defines the strategy for determining column data types:

• None: All columns are returned as string types. Column names are still scanned when Header=True, even with this setting.
• RowScan: Rows are scanned to heuristically infer data types based on their content. The depth of the scan is controlled by the RowScanDepth property.

By default, RowScanDepth is used if no value is explicitly specified. Use None for simplicity when data type inference is not required or when consistent string typing is preferred.

Specifies the use of the BatchWriteItem operation for updates and inserts. This is required for handling binary or binary-set data, as the default operations (ExecuteStatement/BatchExecuteStatement) do not support these field types.

Data Type

bool

Default Value

false

Remarks

By default, the Cloud uses the ExecuteStatement or BatchExecuteStatement operation to handle updates and inserts. However, these operations do not support manipulating binary or binary-set fields. To handle these data types, enable this property to switch to the BatchWriteItem operation.

Using BatchWriteItem may alter the behavior and performance characteristics of updates and inserts. This property should only be enabled when your dataset includes binary or binary-set data that needs to be inserted or updated. For other use cases, the default operations are sufficient.

Specifies whether consistent reads should always be used when querying DynamoDB. Consistent reads provide the most up-to-date data, but consume more read capacity.

Data Type

bool

Default Value

false

Remarks

When this property is set to true, the Cloud performs consistent reads, ensuring the most up-to-date data is returned for queries and scans. However, consistent reads consume twice as many read capacity units as eventually consistent reads. Use this property only when accurate and immediate data consistency is critical for your use case.

Note: Consistent reads are not supported for global secondary indexes. If you scan or query using a secondary index, the property is ignored even if set to true.

Boolean determining if simple names should be used for tables and columns.

Data Type

bool

Default Value

false

Remarks

Amazon DynamoDB tables and columns can use special characters in names that are normally not allowed in standard databases. UseSimpleNames makes the Cloud easier to use with traditional database tools.

Setting UseSimpleNames to true will simplify the names of tables and columns returned. It will enforce a naming scheme such that only alphanumeric characters and the underscore are valid for the displayed table and column names. Any nonalphanumeric characters will be converted to an underscore.