## Crawl Amazon DynamoDB

URL: https://docs.atlan.com/apps/connectors/database/amazon-dynamodb/how-tos/crawl-amazon-dynamodb

> Extract metadata from Amazon DynamoDB to catalog tables, items, and attributes. Extract asset information and column-level details after configuring AWS permissions.

Extract metadata from your [Amazon DynamoDB](https://docs.atlan.com/llms/connectors/amazon-dynamodb/set-up-amazon-dynamodb/llms.txt) database into Atlan to catalog tables, items, and enable data discovery. After configuring the necessary AWS permissions, you can establish a connection and crawl your DynamoDB instance to extract asset-level details.

To crawl metadata from Amazon DynamoDB, review the

 [order of operations](https://docs.atlan.com/llms/catalog/connector-capabilities/order-workflows/llms.txt) and then complete the following steps.

## Select the source

To select Amazon DynamoDB as your source:

1. In your Atlan workspace, click **Connectors** in the left sidebar.
 * If you are using the **Old UI (Classic)**, click **New Workflow** in the top navigation.

2. Click **Marketplace**.

3. Search for **Amazon DynamoDB Assets** and select it.

4. Click **Install**.

5. Once installation completes, click **Setup Workflow** on the same tile.

## Provide your credentials

To enter your Amazon DynamoDB credentials:

1. For _Extraction method_, _Direct_ is the default extraction method.

2. For _Authentication,_ choose the method you configured when [setting up the Amazon DynamoDB access permissions](https://docs.atlan.com/llms/connectors/amazon-dynamodb/set-up-amazon-dynamodb/llms.txt):
 - For **IAM User** authentication, enter the [_AWS Access Key_ and _AWS Secret Key_ you downloaded](https://docs.atlan.com/llms/connectors/amazon-dynamodb/set-up-amazon-dynamodb/llms.txt).
 - For **IAM Role** authentication, enter the [_AWS Role ARN_ you configured](https://docs.atlan.com/llms/connectors/amazon-dynamodb/set-up-amazon-dynamodb/llms.txt). (Optional) Enter the _AWS External ID_ only if you have [configured an external ID](https://docs.atlan.com/llms/connectors/amazon-dynamodb/set-up-amazon-dynamodb/llms.txt) in the role definition.
3. For _AWS Region_, enter the AWS region of your Amazon DynamoDB instance.

4. Click the **Test Authentication** button to confirm connectivity to Amazon DynamoDB.

5. Once authentication is successful, navigate to the bottom of the screen and click **Next**.

## Configure the connection

To complete the Amazon DynamoDB connection configuration:

1. Provide a _Connection Name_ that represents your source environment. For example, you might use values like `production`,`development`,`gold`, or `analytics`.

2. (Optional) To change the users who are able to manage this connection, change the users or groups listed under _Connection Admins_.

 :::warning

 If you do not specify any user or group, no one will be able to manage the connection - not even admins.

 :::

3. Navigate to the bottom of the screen and click **Next** to proceed.

## Configure the crawler

Before running the Amazon DynamoDB crawler, you can further configure it.

On the _Metadata_ page, you can override the defaults for any of these options:

- To have the crawler ignore tables based on a naming convention, specify a regular expression in the _Exclude tables regex_ field.
- To have the crawler include tables based on a naming convention, specify a regular expression in the _Include tables regex_ field.

:::info **Did you know?** 
 If an asset appears in both the include and exclude filters, the exclude filter takes precedence.

:::

## Run the crawler

To run the Amazon DynamoDB crawler, after completing the steps above:

- To run the crawler once immediately, at the bottom of the screen, click the **Run** button.
- To schedule the crawler to run hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly, at the bottom of the screen, click the **Schedule Run** button.

Once the crawler has completed running, you will see the assets on Atlan's asset page! 🎉

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