feast-dev
diff --git a/‎docs/how-to-guides/online-server-performance-tuning.md‎
Lines changed: 2 additions & 0 deletions b/‎docs/how-to-guides/online-server-performance-tuning.md‎
Lines changed: 2 additions & 0 deletions
diff --git a/‎docs/reference/online-stores/dynamodb.md‎
Lines changed: 4 additions & 0 deletions b/‎docs/reference/online-stores/dynamodb.md‎
Lines changed: 4 additions & 0 deletions
diff --git a/‎sdk/python/tests/unit/infra/online_store/test_dynamodb_online_store.py‎
Lines changed: 6 additions & 0 deletions b/‎sdk/python/tests/unit/infra/online_store/test_dynamodb_online_store.py‎
Lines changed: 6 additions & 0 deletions
@@ -324,6 +324,7 @@ online_store:
   batch_size: 100
   max_read_workers: 10
   consistent_reads: false
+  warmup_connections: true
   max_pool_connections: 100
   keepalive_timeout: 30.0
   connect_timeout: 3
@@ -337,6 +338,7 @@ Key knobs:
 - **`batch_size`**: DynamoDB's `BatchGetItem` accepts up to 100 items per request. For 500 entities, this means 5 batches. Keep at 100 unless hitting the 16 MB response limit.
 - **`max_read_workers`**: Controls parallelism for batch reads. With 10 workers, those 5 batches run concurrently (~10 ms) instead of sequentially (~50 ms).
 - **`consistent_reads: false`**: Eventually consistent reads are faster and cheaper. Use `true` only if you need read-after-write consistency.
+- **`warmup_connections: true`**: Pre-warms the DynamoDB connection pool on server startup by making a lightweight call (`describe_limits`). This avoids a cold-start latency penalty (~20ms) on the very first feature request.
 - **`max_pool_connections`**: Increase for high-throughput deployments to improve HTTP connection reuse to the DynamoDB endpoint.
 - **`keepalive_timeout`**: Longer keep-alive reduces TLS handshake overhead on reused connections.
 - **`connect_timeout` / `read_timeout`**: Lower values fail fast, improving p99. Set aggressively if your retry strategy covers transient failures.
 
@@ -37,6 +37,7 @@ online_store:
   batch_size: 100
   max_read_workers: 10
   consistent_reads: false
+  warmup_connections: true
 ```
 {% endcode %}
 
@@ -49,6 +50,7 @@ online_store:
 | `batch_size` | int | `100` | Number of items per BatchGetItem/BatchWriteItem request (max 100) |
 | `max_read_workers` | int | `10` | Maximum parallel threads for batch read operations. Higher values improve throughput for large batch reads but increase resource usage |
 | `consistent_reads` | bool | `false` | Whether to use strongly consistent reads (higher latency, guaranteed latest data) |
+| `warmup_connections` | bool | `false` | Whether to pre-warm the async connection pool on startup with a lightweight call (`describe_limits`) |
 | `tags` | dict | `null` | AWS resource tags added to each table |
 | `session_based_auth` | bool | `false` | Use AWS session-based client authentication |
 
@@ -63,6 +65,8 @@ For high-throughput workloads with large entity counts, increase `max_read_worke
 
 **Batch Size**: Increase `batch_size` up to 100 to reduce the number of API calls. However, larger batches may hit DynamoDB's 16MB response limit for tables with large feature values.
 
+**Connection Warmup**: The DynamoDB async client does not establish actual TCP/TLS connections to the AWS endpoint on initialization. The very first feature retrieval request is penalized with a cold-start overhead (~20ms). Setting `warmup_connections: true` establishes the TCP connection pool during server startup.
+
 ## Permissions
 
 Feast requires the following permissions in order to execute commands for DynamoDB online store:
 
@@ -136,6 +136,12 @@ async def test_dynamodb_online_store_warmup_connections():
     await online_store.initialize(config_no_warmup)
     mock_client.describe_limits.assert_not_called()
 
+    # Test case 3: warmup_connections=True and describe_limits raises an exception (should catch and log warning)
+    mock_client.describe_limits.reset_mock()
+    mock_client.describe_limits.side_effect = Exception("Connection failed")
+    await online_store.initialize(config_warmup)
+    mock_client.describe_limits.assert_called_once()
+
 
 def test_dynamodb_online_store_config_dynamodb_client(dynamodb_online_store):
     """Test DynamoDBOnlineStoreConfig configure DynamoDB client with endpoint_url."""