DynamoDB – Backups for Disaster Recovery

Continuous Backups (Point-in-Time Recovery – PITR)

• Automatically records all item changes for up to 35 days.

• Enables restoring the table to any second within the retention period.

• Disabled by default – must be turned on per table.

• Recovery creates a new table; original table remains unchanged.

• Useful for operational recovery from accidental writes or deletes.

On-Demand Backups

• Creates a full snapshot of the table, retained until manually deleted.

• No performance or latency impact during backup.

• Ideal for long-term retention, compliance, and point-in-time snapshots before major changes.

• Can be managed via AWS Backup for centralized scheduling and cross-region copies.

• Recovery also creates a new table.

Key Notes

• PITR covers all changes within the 35-day window; On-Demand is a full snapshot at a specific moment.

• PITR is better for short-term operational recovery; On-Demand is better for compliance and archiving.