Amazon uses NoSQL databases to run their web stores, and they tend to be quite secretive about what technology their using. Earlier, they used Oracle for their data but eventually switched to their own databases.
Amazon is not so openly transparent about what databases they use, but the Amazon jobs page for their “Fast Data Technologies” team gives us a clue about their systems:
“Amazon’s Fast Data Technologies team builds platforms and technology solutions to share, store, move and process the data that serves our retail and digital businesses. We own one of the largest NoSQL databases in the world, serving trillions of requests daily. And we develop world-class solutions leveraging AWS technologies where we can (and build our own where we cannot). We are an accelerator and enabler for Amazon’s internal businesses, making them more effective at managing, optimizing and acting on the huge volumes of data at their disposal.”
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They Move Away From Oracle
As per this CNBC news, Amazon eventually migrated away from using Oracle because they were looking for more scalable data structures. Although he said that Amazon would use their own services, he didn’t mention which database it is. They also moved the data warehouse to their own petabyte-scale data warehouse, Amazon Redshift.
The current CEO of Amazon and the prior chief of AWS, Andy Jassy, said in a tweet that they would primarily use DynamoDB and Aurora after moving from Oracle.
Though the article is now a few years old, so Amazon may have changed their technical infrastructure since then.
DynamoDB by Amazon
It’s possible that Amazon is using DynamoDB, which is a high-performance NoSQL database service that is offered by Amazon as part of AWS. It is a fully managed cloud database and supports both document and key-value data models. DynamoDB is designed to provide high performance, scalability, and availability for applications that require consistent, fast access to large amounts of data.
One of the primary benefits of using DynamoDB is its scalability. DynamoDB can handle large amounts of data and can scale to meet the needs of massive applications. It also offers high performance and availability, so the applications will be able to continue running smoothly even under high traffic loads.
Amazon Aurora
Another database service that was mentioned in the CNBC news report is Amazon Aurora.
Amazon Aurora is a relational database service that is offered as part of the Amazon Web Services portfolio. It is compatible with both MySQL and PostgreSQL. Aurora was announced in 2014 and has since become one of the most popular relational databases in the cloud.
As per the Amazon AWS website, Aurora is three times faster than the usual PostgreSQL, and five times faster than the standard MySQL database. Therefore, it is a perfect choice as a commercial database because of its reliability, availability, and performance. It is also highly cost-effective.
Why does Amazon use Aurora?
The main reason for Amazon to choose Aurora as their database is that it provides the same functionality as MySQL and PostgreSQL while also offering the high availability and durability that they need. Additionally, Aurora can be scaled up or down quickly according to the needs of the business, making it a very flexible option.
One of the characteristics of Amazon Aurora is it is designed to offer 99.99% availability. Moreover, the data is being replicated six times across three different Availability Zones, and backups are continuously taken to Amazon S3. This ensures that your data is always safe and accessible, no matter what happens.
In addition to the high availability and durability that Aurora provides, it also offers a high level of security. Amazon VPC can be used to create a private network for your database for data isolation to keep it safe and secure. Aurora also encrypts data at rest using keys you make that can be controlled through AWS Key Management Service.
This could all change very quickly
Amazon, like all of the other tech giants, is in continuous change. We’re not fully certain which particular implementation of NoSQL that Amazon uses for their web stores, but even if we knew for sure, the answer to this question could be completely different tomorrow!
The main thing that we know for certain is that Amazon are clearly using a highly scalable architecture for their operations and it’s certainly not a simple database structure!