This article was authored by AWS Sr. Specialist SA Alexander Schueren and published with permission.
We all like to build new systems, but there are too many business-critical systems that need to be improved. Thus, constantly evolving system architecture remains a major challenge for engineering teams. Decomposing the monolith is not a new topic. Strategies and techniques like domain-driven design and strangler patterns shaped the industry practice of modernization. NoSQL databases became popular for modernization projects. Better performance, flexible schemas, and cost-effectiveness are key reasons for adoption. They scale better and are more resilient than traditional SQL databases. Using a managed solution and reducing operational overhead is a big plus. But moving data is different: it’s messy and there are many unknowns. How do you design the schema, keep the data consistent, handle failures, or roll back? In this article, we will discuss two strategies that can help transition from SQL to NoSQL more smoothly: change data capture and dual-writes.