Amazon Quantum Ledger Database (QLDB) is a fully managed ledger database that provides a transparent, immutable, and cryptographically verifiable transaction log owned by a central trusted authority. Amazon QLDB tracks each and every application data change and maintains a complete and verifiable history of changes over time.
Key Points for Quantum Ledger Database (QLDB)
- QLDB is fully managed, and serverless.
- QLDB has a Document-oriented data model
- QLDB supports ACID
- Immutable and Transparent – QLDB is “append-only” – that is – data can only be added to the journal, but not updated or deleted
- Entire change history is clearly and easily accessible
- Cryptographically Verifiable – QLDB creates a summary (called “digest” ) of change history, using cryptographic hash function. Digest can be used to verify the integrity of the data.
- QLDB support PartiQL – an open source query language that enables SQL-compatible access to relational, semi-structured, and nested data.
- QLDB supports Streaming – it can provide (near) real-time flow of changes happening to your QLDB data, via Kinesis Data Streams.
- QLDB is deployed across multiple AZs with multiple copies to enable high data durability.
- QLDB does not support cross-Region replication
- It’s purpose-built for applications that act as system-of-record and require trust for data integrity.
- Data is encrypted both at rest, and in transit.
QLDB vs Blockchain
QLDB is not a Blockchain or distributed ledger. QLDB has similar purpose, but is created for centralized authority as compared to Blockchain / distributed ledgers which are designed for decentralizing the authority.
Backup and Restore
QLDB does not support backup and restore feature at this point.
- It does support data export to S3
Following picture shows a conceptual view of how QLDB works
Image courtesy of AWS
Following picture shows a conceptual view of how PartiQL can be used
Image courtesy of AWS
Pricing
Amazon QLDB is billed for following components:
- Write IO Requests – per 1 million requests
- Read IO Requests – per 1 million requests
- Journal Storage – per GB per month
- Indexed Storage – per GB per month
- Data Transfer
- data transfer between Regions are charged on both sides – standard data transfer rates apply
- data transfer out of AWS to internet – standard data transfer rates apply
External Resources
