The document summarizes how Chick-fil-A scaled their mobile app, Chick-fil-A One, during its launch using Amazon DynamoDB and AWS services. It discusses how the app saw 6 million registrations in 30 days and how the architecture was designed using microservices and DynamoDB to handle the massive scale. It also provides lessons learned around load testing, visibility, and deployment strategies when handling large volumes of traffic.

1. © 2016, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Chris Taylor
Director, Customer Experience Architecture
Andrew Baird
Solutions Architect, AWS
December 1, 2016
6 Million Registrations in 30 Days
How Chick-fil-A One Scaled on AWS

2. What to Expect from the Session
• Scaling your mobile app with Amazon DynamoDB
• Chick-fil-A One business context
• API tier high-level design overview
• Lessons learned in building and launching
• A peek into plans for the future

3. What is DynamoDB?
Non-Relational Managed
NoSQL Database Service

4. Mobile Dev
+
DynamoDB
4ever

5. But why?

6. Scale what matters
• Only provision and pay for the capacity you require
• Scaling events are exciting, not terrifying
Team Members Dedicated to NoSQL Infrastructure
Pre-App Launch 0
At Scale 0

7. Dead simple, robust depth
Dead Simple
• GetItem(primaryKey)
• PutItem(item)
Robust Depth
• Fine-Grained Access Control
• Streams
• Triggers
• Cross-Region Replication
• DynamoDB local
• Free-text search
• Titan Graph Database integration
• Strong consistency option
• Atomic counters

8. Fine-Grained Access Control
• Use AWS Identity and Access Management Policies for
record and attribute level control
Restrict a mobile device to
only user-specific items
Restrict some clients
from specific attributes

9. Stream of updates to a table
Asynchronous
Exactly once
Strictly ordered
• Per item
Highly durable
• Scale with table
24-hour lifetime
Subsecond latency
DynamoDB Streams

10. Performance where it counts
• Low single-digit millisecond latency
• No limit to table throughput

11. How do high-scale mobile apps
leverage DynamoDB?

12. Leveraging DynamoDB for massive scale apps
User Data Session/App State Transaction Metadata Index for Objects in S3

14. • 2000+ locations
• 43 states
• $6B 2015 revenue
• 48 years positive sales
growth

15. • If you know someone’s story, you
can care for them personally
• Mission: make every digital
interaction with the brand
remarkably convenient in the most
personal way

16. Launch Week: June 1

17. DXE: Digital Experience Engine
• Java
• Spring Boot
• Spring Cloud
• AWS Elastic Beanstalk
• Netflix Zuul - routing
• Netflix Hystrix
• DynamoDB for non-PII
• Microservice Architecture
• Partner API Orchestration
• Custom Functionality
Image: public domain, credit
https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary/albums/72157639428882575/with/11230061924/

18. High-Volume Custom Manufacturing
AT PEAK HOUR
1 sandwich every 16 seconds
1 box of nuggets every 25 seconds
1 order of waffle fries every 14 seconds
1 car through the drive thru every 22 seconds
267 total transactions

19. High-Volume Custom Manufacturing

20. Topology Diagram

21. Not Just the Cloud

22. Defining Microservices
• Functional isolation and separation of concerns, e.g.:
• DXE:Ordering
• DXE:Payment
• DXE:Favorites
• DXE:Survey
• Targeted QA and regression
• Rapid deployment, even under load if necessary
• Choice of implementation language and infrastructure
• Influenced by Twelve-Factor App methodology (12factor.net)

23. Supporting Cast of Services

24. Scale
Pre-launch
• 75 servers
• Mostly t2.small
Peak
• ~225 servers
• Moved to mix of
c4.large and
t2.medium
• All service tiers
upgraded in 30
minutes

25. Cloud-Native vs. Cloud-Clumsy
Watch out for:
• CPU-based licensing
• Per-year vs. per-hour
• Feature bundling
• Admin by UI, not API
Used by permission of http://www.jekyllislandchronicles.com/

26. Getting Ready for Guests
• Load testing crucial
• Test by use case
• Model based on
forecasts
• Engage AWS support
Used by permission of Getty Images

27. Visibility is Crucial

28. Lessons Learned
• Use open source, or choose cloud-savvy software partners
• DynamoDB doesn’t auto-scale, but can be made to
• Deployment to the live EB environment has risks, limits
• Blue-green deployment under load outpaces ELB scaling
• Invest in the ability to pilot new features in a granular way
• Visibility of business metrics is crucial
• Splunk App for AWS 4.x is rate-limited by ingestion mechanism

29. What’s Next?
• 6 Million Menus
• A Hundred Different Ordering Interfaces
• How About Delivery?
• Customer in-Restaurant Engagement Through Beacons (IoT)
• Fully Automated Blue-Green Deployment
• Region Failover Design and Testing
• Netflix Eureka for Service Discovery
• Beyond Java and Beyond Servers for API Endpoints

30. Remember to complete
your evaluations!

31. Thank you!
chris.taylor@cfacorp.com