Question

A developer builds a DynamoDB table for an IoT platform that ingests telemetry from thousands of sensors. The table uses 'deviceType' as the partition key and a timestamp as the sort key. Only three device types exist. During load testing, the application experiences frequent ProvisionedThroughputExceededException errors even though total consumed capacity is far below the provisioned capacity. What is the MOST likely cause and the best remediation?

Accepted Answer

The partition key has low cardinality, creating hot partitions; redesign the key to use a high-cardinality value such as 'deviceId' to distribute writes evenly.

Answer

Provisioned capacity is set too low; switch the table to on-demand capacity mode to eliminate all throttling regardless of key design.

Answer

The sort key timestamp causes throttling; remove the sort key and store timestamps as a non-key attribute.

Answer

DynamoDB Streams is consuming write capacity; disable Streams to free up throughput for the ingestion workload.