Question 1

How is the schema discovered?

Accepted Answer

By sampling. Polytomic scans up to two hundred items and unions their top level attributes, then reads the key definitions from DescribeTable. There is no declared schema to read from, so this is inference rather than description, which is the fundamental difference between this and any relational source.

Question 2

What if an attribute only exists on some items?

Accepted Answer

It is discovered as long as it appears in the sample, and items without it get an empty value. If it is rare enough to miss the sample entirely, it will not be offered until a later schema refresh catches it. On a table holding several item shapes, that is worth checking rather than assuming.

Question 3

What if the same attribute holds different types?

Accepted Answer

The first concrete type in the sample generally wins. Polytomic does not construct a union type, so an attribute that is sometimes a number and sometimes a string lands as whichever appeared first. Single table designs are the usual place this causes trouble, since one physical table deliberately holds several logical entities.

Question 4

How do the keys come across?

Accepted Answer

Under their original attribute names, with no synthetic key columns added, marked as identity or unique from DynamoDB's key schema. For a table with a composite key, use the partition key and the sort key together as the identity.

Question 5

How does change capture work into a data warehouse?

Accepted Answer

The first ETL run reads the table, then DynamoDB Streams carry inserts, updates and deletes. Streams must be set to NEW_IMAGE or NEW_AND_OLD_IMAGES, and retention is only twenty four hours, so a long stall forces a full resync.

Sync DynamoDB to Snowflake

Sync DynamoDB to Snowflake with Polytomic

Two hundred item sample

First type seen wins

Keys become identity

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