Kaizen Gaming was founded in 2012 when there were less database options available and they decided to build their platform on SQL Server. Over the years, they started to run into complications that are often associated with monolithic architectures. 

For example, they were dealing with page latches, delays, and thread issues leading to performance degradation. They eventually had to start sharding SQL Server which introduced a new set of challenges such as hot shards, resource contention, and additional operational complexity. 

The engineering team needed a new, modern database solution that wouldn’t require them to manage shard logic and would allow them to easily scale out to a global audience. They started searching for a distributed SQL solution which is when they came across CockroachDB. 

From a feature comparison standpoint what won them over was CockroachDB’s…

• Strong consistency & ACID guarantees

• Effortless horizontal scale

• Guaranteed high availability 

• Built-in resilience

• Simplified operations 

While these features matched their requirements for a new database solution, the engineering team wanted to run CockroachDB through stress tests for common scenarios that apply to their business. 

They first tested CockroachDB for failover and restore scenarios and observed a minor 1-2 minute delay, but saw that all requests processed successfully and there were no issues restoring the data. They also tested several maintenance and housekeeping operations such as version upgrades and rebalancing. They didn’t observe any significant overhead and there were zero disruptions. Finally they tested performance which ended up exceeding their expectations.

May the odds be ever in your favor

Since the team was working with a monolithic architect for years, they initially faced a learning curve to adopting a distributed SQL system. They leveraged the Cockroach Labs team for support and participated in several enablement sessions to help close the knowledge gap. 

Kaizen Gaming’s team emphasized that there's a lot of value in partnering closely with the Cockroach Labs team who has been helping deliver feature requests for their use case. They report that they initially made 12 feature requests and were very impressed that three of those were delivered in the first two months of their engagement. 

For others that are new to distributed systems, the team says there’s some tradoffs to be aware of. For example, you might have slightly slower individual inserts due to its distributed nature. You also want to rethink your models in a way that will optimize performance and it's wise to do continuous testing.