Wednesday, February 4, 2026

Amazon DynamoDB international tables now assist replication throughout AWS accounts


Amazon DynamoDB international tables is a totally managed, multi-Area, and multi-active database characteristic that gives seamless knowledge replication and quick native learn and write efficiency for globally scaled purposes.

Right this moment, we’re asserting multi-account international tables for Amazon DynamoDB, which allow you to replicate DynamoDB desk knowledge throughout a number of AWS accounts and AWS Areas. This characteristic provides account-level isolation to international tables, so you may replicate DynamoDB desk knowledge throughout a number of AWS accounts and Areas for stronger isolation and resiliency.

With this characteristic, DynamoDB now helps two international tables fashions, every designed for various architectural patterns:

  • Similar-account international tables – Replicas are created and managed inside a single AWS account
  • Multi-account international tables – Replicas are deployed throughout a number of AWS accounts whereas taking part in a shared replication group

Each fashions assist quick native writes, asynchronous replication, and last-writer-wins battle decision. Nevertheless, they differ in how accounts, permissions, encryption, and desk governance are managed. Multi-account international tables presently assist multi-Area eventual consistency (MREC) solely.

On this submit, we present you the right way to create and configure a multi-account international desk, and introduce use instances highlighting the worth of utilizing this characteristic.

Enhanced catastrophe restoration structure

Multi-account international tables rework how one can architect catastrophe restoration options. By distributing your knowledge throughout a number of AWS accounts, you may have extra layers of isolation to restrict the affect of misconfigurations, safety incidents, or account-level points.Contemplate a situation the place your major software runs in Account1 (us-east-1) and your catastrophe restoration atmosphere operates in Account2 (us-west-2). With multi-account international tables, each accounts keep synchronized copies of your essential knowledge, enabling fast failover with out complicated knowledge migration procedures.

Organizational compliance and value attribution

Many enterprises function with a number of AWS accounts for organizational, safety, or compliance causes. Multi-account international tables assist these organizations keep knowledge consistency throughout their distributed infrastructure whereas respecting current compliance boundaries, guardrails, and governance fashions.For instance, a monetary providers firm would possibly keep separate accounts for various enterprise items or regulatory environments. Multi-account international tables permit these items to share essential reference knowledge whereas sustaining the isolation required by their compliance frameworks. As well as, the prices for every Regional reproduction are aligned to AWS accounts that could be managed by separate enterprise items.

For extra data on multi-account methods, check with AWS account administration and separation and Advantages of utilizing a number of AWS accounts.

How DynamoDB multi-account international tables work

Multi-account international tables use permissions outlined in resource-based insurance policies to point which different accounts can be part of the replication group, and to permit knowledge to be replicated.

Every reproduction should reside in a separate AWS account and a separate Area. For a multi-account international desk with N replicas, you have to have N accounts in N separate Areas.

You’ll be able to start with an current, non-empty single Area desk, after which add a duplicate desk in one other Area and account. The system will copy current gadgets into the brand new desk. When each tables are synchronized, you will note every desk’s standing as ACTIVE.

Multi-account international tables publish the ReplicationLatency metric to Amazon CloudWatch. This metric tracks the elapsed time between when an merchandise is written to a duplicate desk and when that merchandise seems in one other reproduction within the international desk. You’ll be able to monitor this metric to grasp how shortly gadgets are replicated to distant Areas.

Multi-account international tables: Settings replication habits

When making a multi-account international desk, you have to set GlobalTableSettingsReplication to ENABLED for every Regional reproduction. This implies configuration modifications made in a single Area will propagate routinely to different Areas that take part within the international desk.

For the supply desk, you may allow settings replication after desk creation. This helps the situation the place a desk is initially created as a Regional desk and later upgraded to a multi-account international desk.

Confer with Settings synchronization for a listing of synchronized and non-synchronized reproduction settings.

Resolution overview

On this submit, we offer a high-level abstract of steps required to make use of multi-account international tables. For an in depth tutorial, check with Tutorials: Creating international tables.

For our instance, we use two accounts: ACCOUNT1 in REGION1 and ACCOUNT2 in REGION2.

We will create the Amazon Useful resource Names (ARNs) for every desk reproduction upfront as follows, assuming the brand new desk is named myTable:

  • ACCOUNT1_TABLE_ARN: “arn:aws:dynamodb:REGION1:ACCOUNT1:desk/myTable”
  • ACCOUNT2_TABLE_ARN: “arn:aws:dynamodb:REGION2:ACCOUNT2:desk/myTable”
  1. Create a DynamoDB desk in REGION1. You’ll be able to add gadgets to the desk or use an current single-Area desk that has gadgets. For this submit, we identify the desk myTable.
  2. Set the desk’s GlobalTableSettingsReplication: ENABLED.

The next screenshot reveals this setting on the DynamoDB console.

In case you are utilizing the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI), you may also point out this throughout the create-table command by including –global-table-settings-replication ENABLED.

  1. Add a useful resource coverage to the desk, with the next two statements:
{
    "Model": "2012-10-17",
    "Assertion": [
       {
         "Sid": " AllowTrustedAccountsToJoinThisGlobalTable",
         "Effect": "Allow",
         "Principal": {
             "AWS": []
         },
         "Motion": "dynamodb:AssociateTableReplica",
         "Useful resource": 
       },
       {
         "Sid": "AllowReplication",
         "Impact": "Permit",
         "Principal": {
             "Service": "replication.dynamodb.amazonaws.com"
         },
         "Motion": [
                      "dynamodb: ReadDataForReplication",
                      "dynamodb: WriteDataForReplication",
                      "dynamodb: ReplicateSettings"
                    ],                
         "Useful resource": ,
         "Situation": {
            "StringEquals": {
               "aws:SourceAccount": [, ],
               "aws:SourceArn": [, 
                                 ]
            }          
         }
       }
    ]
}

The Situation part of those insurance policies is required so the DynamoDB service linked function can have permissions to copy knowledge amongst the tables you specify. You’ll be able to add extra accounts and ARNs to the resource-based coverage if that you must broaden your international desk to extra accounts and Areas.

  1. Create a DynamoDB desk in ACCOUNT2 and REGION2 with the next settings:
    • GlobalTableSettingsReplication: ENABLED
    • Embody a useful resource coverage with the next format:
{
    "Model": "2012-10-17",
    "Assertion": [
       {
         "Sid": "AllowReplication",
         "Effect": "Allow",
         "Principal": {
             "Service": "replication.dynamodb.amazonaws.com"
         },
         "Action": [
                      "dynamodb: ReadDataForReplication",
                      "dynamodb: WriteDataForReplication",
                      "dynamodb: ReplicateSettings"
         ],
         "Useful resource": ,
         "Situation": {
            "StringEquals": {
               "aws:SourceAccount": [, ],
               "aws:SourceArn": [, ]
            }
         }
       }
    ]
}

You may as well accomplish this step on the DynamoDB console. Select the Create desk dropdown menu and select Create cross-account international desk reproduction.

The next screenshot reveals the configuration particulars required.

Use instances

One sort of catastrophe planning is the situation of a malicious actor gaining full management of Account1. Ought to this occur, the proprietor of Account2 can halt replication by updating their desk’s useful resource coverage to disclaim replication actions. If the desk has point-in-time restoration enabled, you may carry out an incremental export to Amazon Easy Storage Service (Amazon S3) to get a snapshot of all writes from the final 24 hours in JSON format. Then, you may assessment the new and previous pictures of any gadgets modified, to see the unique state of any gadgets that would have been maliciously altered. This might be flagged as an irregular state for a world desk, so AWS Assist would possibly attain out to you to confirm why replication has stopped.

One other use case is once you wish to transfer a desk between AWS accounts. On the time of writing, multi-account international tables don’t assist same-Area replication, so a collection of steps should be carried out, quickly involving one other Area. The high-level steps are as follows:

  1. Configure your software to have the ability to swap the AWS account and Area used for authentication to DynamoDB.
  2. Use the steps lined on this submit to:
    1. Add a useful resource coverage to the desk in Account1, Region1.
    2. Create a linked reproduction desk in Account2, Region2.
  3. Alter your software to make use of the DynamoDB desk in Account2, Region2.
  4. Delete the desk reproduction in Account1, Region1.
  5. Utilizing Account2, name update-table to request a brand new same-account reproduction be added in Region1.
  6. Examine the desk standing. When it returns to ACTIVE, your desk reproduction in Account2, Region1 is prepared.
  7. Change the appliance to make use of Account2, Region1.
  8. (Non-compulsory) Delete the desk reproduction in Account2, Region2.

Abstract

DynamoDB international tables now assist replication throughout a number of AWS accounts. This enhances resiliency although account-level isolation, helps tailor-made safety and data-perimeter controls, permits alignment of workloads by enterprise unit or atmosphere, and simplifies governance necessities. To study extra, check with World tables – multi-active, multi-Area replication and Resilience and catastrophe restoration in Amazon DynamoDB. Please tell us your suggestions within the feedback part.


Concerning the writer

Robert McCauley

Robert McCauley

Robert is an Amazon DynamoDB Specialist Options Architect primarily based out of Boston. He started his Amazon profession in 2012 as a SQL developer at Amazon Robotics, adopted by a stint as an Alexa Expertise options architect, earlier than becoming a member of AWS.

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