SHOPLINE Slashes Cluster Costs by 50% with TiDB

In cross-border e-commerce, SHOPLINE has emerged as a leading provider of one-stop solutions, enabling businesses and individuals to establish and grow their global online presence. Offering a comprehensive suite of services—including online store setup, multi-channel sales, inventory management, payment system integration, logistics tracking, marketing tools, and customer relationship management—SHOPLINE empowers merchants to manage their online operations and optimize customer relationships seamlessly.

However, as SHOPLINE expanded, the company faced significant technical challenges. SHOPLINE leveraged TiDB technology to address these, driving a digital transformation that resolved their pain points and achieved notable cost reductions and efficiency improvements. 

The Challenge: Navigating Technical Hurdles in SHOPLINE’s Digital Transformation

SHOPLINE encountered a series of critical technical challenges that needed to be addressed to sustain and scale its cross-border e-commerce operations:

1. Technology Selection
   As business volumes grew, selecting the right technology stack, particularly for databases and backend services, became a significant challenge. The technology needed to handle large-scale data and support high concurrency to maintain SHOPLINE’s operational efficiency.
2. Service Personalization
   Meeting consumer demand for personalized services required offering customized solutions tailored to the specific needs of different merchants. This challenge was pivotal in enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty.
3. User Experience Optimization
   Ensuring a consistent and high-quality shopping experience across multiple devices, especially mobile, posed higher standards for front-end design and backend services. Achieving this required seamless integration between the user interface and backend processing.
4. Data Analysis and Application
   Leveraging data analytics to drive business decisions necessitated implementing robust data analytics tools. These tools are needed to give merchants actionable insights into market trends and consumer behavior to optimize their strategies.
5. Cost Efficiency
   Delivering high-quality services while maintaining cost efficiency was essential for SHOPLINE to remain competitive and profitable. This required strategic technology investments that balanced performance with cost savings.
6. Market Adaptability
   As SHOPLINE expanded globally, quickly adapting to the varying market environments of different countries and regions became crucial. This included ensuring regulatory compliance and localizing payment and logistics solutions to meet diverse market demands.

TiDB Originally in SHOPLINE’s Business Cluster

Initially, SHOPLINE’s infrastructure consisted of over 10 TiDB clusters, each deployed in a binary form with uniform DBMS management. These clusters supported various business functions, including transactions, product management, data warehousing, search, and advertising. Data synchronization across these business areas followed a pipeline that began with MySQL and proceeded through DM (Data Migration), TiDB, TiCDC, and finally Kafka. However, this posed several challenges:

• Core Business Sharing: Multiple core business services, such as transactions and product management, share the same TiDB cluster. This shared infrastructure often led to inter-service interference, especially during peak times like promotions or holidays, when high traffic in one service affected the performance and stability of others.
• Data Synchronization Sensitivity: SHOPLINE’s reliance on real-time data synchronization across the pipeline was crucial for inventory management and real-time recommendations. Any delay in this pipeline could lead to data inconsistency, negatively impacting business decisions and user experience.
• Technical Bottlenecks: Issues such as MySQL DDL changes causing delays in DM synchronization and instability in TiKV or Kafka, leading to interruptions in TiCDC tasks, further strained the system.

The Solution: Optimizing TiDB with Strategic Enhancements and Operational Overhaul

To address these issues and enhance overall system performance and stability, SHOPLINE implemented several strategic changes:

1. Optimized Resource Allocation: TiDB’s resource isolation features were utilized to reduce the interference between business services sharing the same cluster. This involved redistributing workloads and balancing resources to ensure no single service could overwhelm the shared infrastructure.
2. Enhanced Monitoring and Alerts: The data synchronization pipeline’s real-time monitoring was enhanced to quickly identify and address potential performance bottlenecks and delays. This allowed SHOPLINE to manage issues preemptively before they escalated into more significant problems.
3. Technology Upgrades: SHOPLINE upgraded to TiDB version 6.5, which provided improved stability and performance. This version included more efficient data synchronization tools and better memory management, reducing the likelihood of interruptions in CDC tasks due to TiKV or Kafka instability.
4. Fault Tolerance and Self-Healing Mechanisms: New fault tolerance mechanisms were introduced to ensure quick recovery from system jitters or interruptions. This included better handling of CDC tasks and more robust recovery processes to minimize downtime and maintain operational continuity.
5. Cluster Isolation and Migration: The transition included isolating core services into dedicated clusters, reducing the risk of inter-service interference. SHOPLINE also implemented a zero-failure migration strategy, successfully upgrading all clusters from TiDB 4.0 to 6.5 within three months. This migration was carefully planned and executed with customized TiDB parameters tailored to SHOPLINE’s business needs.
6. Cost Efficiency Improvements: The upgrade process resulted in significant cost savings. The total number of TiDB machines was reduced by 50%, the number of internal nodes per cluster was halved, and inter-availability zone traffic decreased by 30% due to data compression. These changes not only improved performance but also reduced operational expenses.

The Upgrade Results: 50% Machine Reduction, 30% Traffic Decrease, and Performance Boost

SHOPLINE meticulously planned their  TiDB upgrade implementation process to enhance performance, reduce costs, and improve scalability. The upgrade began with a thorough assessment of the existing TiDB 4.0 setup, where the team identified critical areas for improvement. This led to a strategic plan for transitioning to TiDB 6.5, emphasizing upgrading the technology stack while retaining essential configuration parameters for compatibility and optimization.

Preparation involved standardizing the TiUP topology.yaml configuration file to align with the new version’s requirements. This process ensured the transition would be smooth and the new system would perform optimally. Comprehensive testing followed, including functional and business testing, to validate core functionalities and assess the impact on various business services. Performance benchmarking was carried out to compare the improvements in speed and efficiency with the previous setup. Additionally, fault tolerance and recovery procedures were tested to confirm the system’s resilience to potential issues during and after the upgrade.

SHOPLINE executed the migration process through a gradual rollout strategy, which minimized risk by incrementally transitioning business services to the new TiDB version. This approach allowed for careful monitoring and adjustment throughout the process. They implemented dual writes to ensure a seamless transition, maintaining data consistency and reducing the risk of data loss by simultaneously writing data to the old and new systems.

SHOPLINE set up enhanced real-time monitoring tools to track the performance and stability of the upgraded TiDB clusters. This included monitoring resource usage, data synchronization pipelines, and overall system health. The team continued to refine TiDB parameters and configurations based on observed performance and operational needs, optimizing cluster quality and reducing failure rates.

SHOPLINE’s TiDB infrastructure overhaul yielded several significant improvements across performance, cost, and operational efficiency:

1. Enhanced Performance and Resource Optimization
   • Reduced Hardware Dependency: SHOPLINE’s upgrade to TiDB 6.5 allowed them to handle more transactions and data efficiently, significantly lowering hardware costs.
   • Improved System Stability: TiDB 6.5’s enhanced performance features contributed to greater system stability, reducing the frequency and impact of system failures.
2. Cost Efficiency
   • Reduced Operational Costs: SHOPLINE cut their TiDB usage by 50%, and halved internal nodes per cluster. Additionally, they decreased inter-availability zone traffic by 30% due to data compression, leading to substantial cost savings in hardware and network usage.
   • Simplified Database Management: Automated operations minimized the organization’s need for specialized DBAs, simplifying daily management tasks and reducing labor costs.
3. Operational Efficiency
   • Streamlined Migration Process: MySQL’s compatibility facilitated a smoother transition from older systems, minimizing migration risks and costs.
   • Efficient Deployment and Maintenance: TiUP’s capabilities enhanced deployment speed and flexibility, allowing for faster cluster delivery and easier adaptation to business changes.
4. Scalability and Flexibility
   • Horizontal Scalability: SHOPLINE’s newfound ability to scale horizontally online allowed them to adjust resources according to business demands, avoiding issues related to over-provisioning or insufficient resources.
   • Flexible Deployment Options: SHOPLINE benefited from options for public, private, or hybrid cloud deployments, optimizing cost-effectiveness.
5. High Availability and Reduced Downtime: TiDB’s high availability design reduced business interruptions, minimizing potential revenue losses due to system failures.
6. Real-Time Data Synchronization: TiDB’s real-time CDC functionality enabled SHOPLINE to respond swiftly to market changes, enhancing decision-making efficiency.
7. Data Compression Technology: SHOPLINE’s tactical adoption of data compression technology reduced storage requirements and network transmission expenses.
8. Global Data Consistency: TiDB’s cross-regional data replication supported global data consistency while reducing associated data transfer costs.
9. Community and Ecosystem Benefits: SHOPLINE’s choice to leverage TiDB’s open-source community provided access to cutting-edge technology updates and best practices, aiding the continuous optimization of SHOPLINE’s technology stack.

The Future

TiDB is firmly established as SHOPLINE’s preferred database technology due to its outstanding performance and flexibility. This choice reflects SHOPLINE’s commitment to leveraging cutting-edge technology to address evolving business demands and enhance platform capabilities.

Moving forward, SHOPLINE will continue to integrate TiDB across all compatible business scenarios. Their strategic decision ensures that the platform maintains high performance and reliability, which is crucial for meeting the dynamic needs of cross-border e-commerce. 

Conclusion 

SHOPLINE’s strategic upgrade to TiDB 6.5 has significantly transformed its operational landscape, addressing critical performance, scalability, and cost efficiency challenges. By adopting TiDB, SHOPLINE optimizes their database infrastructure and enhances service reliability and responsiveness to market changes.

For companies facing similar issues—whether related to managing large-scale data, ensuring high availability, or controlling operational expenses—TiDB provides a robust and flexible solution. Its ability to scale horizontally, support real-time data synchronization, and integrate seamlessly with existing systems makes it a valuable asset for cross-border e-commerce businesses. TiDB’s advanced features empower organizations to maintain a competitive edge and deliver high-quality services as they navigate their growth and digital transformation journeys.