Migrating Counter Service storage: Design choices and learnings

234 · Grab · July 3, 2026, 2:32 a.m.
Summary
This blog post discusses the migration of Grab's Counter Service storage from a wide-column database to Aerospike, detailing design choices and lessons learned during the process. It emphasizes optimizing the data model for performance, implementing shadow reads, and ensuring zero downtime throughout the migration. Key improvements include a significant reduction in storage requirements and enhanced read/write performance, highlighting the importance of aligning storage design with workload demands.