Fireside Chat with Kroger at the Distributed SQL Summit

The founder of YugabyteDB and I discussed Kroger’s multi-year journey modernizing its technology infrastructure using distributed SQL to support its large-scale retail operations with the Kroger VP of Customer Technology at DSS 2021.

Key points:

Kroger, the largest independent grocery chain in the US, operates over 2,800 stores under various banners. The company is focused on digitizing its operations, expanding e-commerce, and using technology to enhance customer experience, particularly around fresh food and sustainability.

About three years prior, Kroger began modernizing its data infrastructure, moving from traditional on-premises databases in two Cincinnati data centers to a hybrid and multi-cloud approach using Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Microsoft Azure, and on-premises systems. YugabyteDB was chosen for its ability to run seamlessly across these environments and support Kubernetes-based deployments.

The migration started with the “shopping list” application and expanded to around 15 applications, including critical systems like cart, checkout, item attributes, and the enterprise customer database—the latter serving as Kroger’s central customer data hub. These applications are essential for e-commerce, inventory management, and personalized customer experiences.

Lessons learned:

• Moving applications to the cloud required significant training, standardization of deployment patterns, and optimization for scalability and failover.
• The team worked closely with Yugabyte to address scalability and performance, especially for high-traffic applications like inventory and search.
• Kroger developed standard onboarding and deployment patterns to ensure cloud migrations are robust from the start, especially for customer-facing (tier-one) applications.

Outcomes:

• Distributed SQL enabled Kroger to scale applications quickly (e.g., inventory scaled 10x), support spikes during holidays, and maintain high availability across regions.
• Real-time inventory, low-latency access, and robust e-commerce features have improved the digital shopping experience.
• The architecture supports future expansion, including edge deployments (in-store systems) and further cloud migration.

Kroger aims to further mature its hybrid and edge deployments, potentially running the same applications both on-premises and in the cloud for optimal latency and resilience. The company is also exploring more advanced use cases, like predictive inventory using machine learning.

See the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnenbVcTYM8