Cloud & Security · Developer Error Resolution Lab

Fix AWS DynamoDB 'ProvisionedThroughputExceededException' (RCU/WCU Throttling)

Handle DynamoDB throttling with exponential backoff retries, On-Demand capacity, or DAX caching.

Fix Guide:

Triggered Error Message:

ProvisionedThroughputExceededException: The level of configured provisioned throughput for the table was exceeded.

Customize Solution for Your Environment

DynamoDB Table Name

# Switch table to Pay-Per-Request (On-Demand) billing to auto-scale:
aws dynamodb update-table \
    --table-name UsersTable \
    --billing-mode PAY_PER_REQUEST

# Or in AWS CDK:
# new Table(this, 'UsersTable', {
#   billingMode: BillingMode.PAY_PER_REQUEST,
# });

Root Cause & Mechanism Analysis

Why does this error occur?

Read Capacity Units (RCU) or Write Capacity Units (WCU) exceeded the configured threshold on a provisioned DynamoDB table due to traffic bursts or hot partition keys.

Frequently Asked Questions

What causes a hot partition key in DynamoDB?

When many items share the same partition key value (e.g. `status = 'pending'`), all traffic routes to a single storage partition, triggering throttles even if table capacity appears sufficient.

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