Executive Summary
The product teams at a leading retailer used Conduktor to troubleshoot and stress-test Kafka infrastructure, create a hybrid governance model that balances autonomy and centralization, reduce onboarding time from three weeks to one hour, and increase adoption to nearly 350 Kafka users.
With hundreds of stores and tens of thousands of employees nationwide, this retailer is based in the United States and a member of the Fortune 500. Their omnichannel operations rely heavily on real-time data to power everything from online checkout to inventory sync and in-store experiences. Streaming isn’t optional; it’s mission-critical.
The Problem: Too Much Friction, Too Much Risk
Apache Kafka sits at the center of that mission-critical system. But as adoption of Kafka expanded across teams, so did the complexity. Developers struggled to get started with a slow, complex onboarding process that led to long wait times—up to three weeks—for new teams and team members.
The teams also encountered increased operational complexity (especially around deploying and maintaining Kafka connectors).
"We had some boilerplate configs. We also had reference architectures, but they only go so far, so [there was] a lot of trial and error."
Senior Software Engineer
During this time, this retailer also launched an initiative to modernize key components of its online infrastructure, including its checkout function, which directly impacted revenue.
“If customers “have to go through the checkout process more than once, they’ll get frustrated and give up. We are talking about…a direct correlation to lost money.”
Manager of Systems Engineering
As part of the modernization program, teams had to test their Kafka components under real-world conditions to ensure that they wouldn’t break down during peak seasons. “It is imperative that we simulate failure scenarios at the Kafka layer, such as latency and broker instability, to test and plan for the worst-case scenario during peak times,” another Senior Software Engineer explains. “Otherwise, we’re just waiting for an outage to happen during Cyber 5 [the holiday shopping season from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday], creating a horrible experience for our athletes and significantly impacting sales during such a critical time.”
One Platform, One Hour Onboarding with Conduktor
Before Conduktor, getting a team up and running on Kafka could take up to three weeks. Today, it takes one hour. “If a team or a team member wants to work within Kafka, we’re down to an hour from a request to having a working Kafka environment available for our developers,” an Engineer explains.
Conduktor’s unique model of centralized governance and decentralized user experience dramatically reduces turnaround times and increases autonomy for developer teams without compromising security or standardization. “We use a hybrid deploy approach,” an Engineer explains. “We have a centralized platform, but also the ability for devs to be decentralized…each one of them can deploy independently and connect to our resources.”
“We had an intern who was brand new to the Kafka space,” a Manager recalls. “Basically, she went from having no knowledge of Kafka to having a working connector in a week, and it was also one we had never used before.”
Conduktor also simplified troubleshooting and deployment by seamlessly integrating with existing tools, such as Azure, single sign-on (SSO) for auditing and controlling access to sensitive data, and Terraform and GitHub for programmatically provisioning, configuring, and automating Kafka resources.
Preventing Production Failures with Chaos Testing
The checkout team hit a wall during e-commerce modernization. A connector issue surfaced late—under production load—delaying processing across the board. It exposed a bigger problem: no safe way to test failures before going live.
Their checkout team now uses Conduktor for chaos testing. “They wanted a way to test without causing outages across different areas,” the Engineer recalls. “Now they’ve used it to test new features they’re adding in…and gives us a proven way to test without affecting other teams and while keeping our shared production service healthy.”
“For e-commerce modernization, the entire athlete order processing mechanism hinges on Kafka availability. Instead of having to react, we now use Conduktor to be proactive.”
Senior Software Engineer
Continuous Feature Upgrades. Real Support. Zero Bottlenecks.
Conduktor didn’t just change the way they interact with Kafka. It changed how the team works. They requested features like alphabetized connector configurations and ksqlDB integration—vital for their devs. Both shipped in weeks.
“See that we put that request in and have it turned around and added as a feature. You know, we've been very impressed and very happy with the way that works out. The Conduktor team takes feature requests from their customers very seriously.”
Manager
The Full Power of Kafka Without the Headaches. The Outcomes and Business Impact
Today, over 300 users interact with Kafka through Conduktor. Usage peaks during holiday seasons when everyone—including product owners and directors—log in to monitor real-time operations. Kafka has become more accessible, less risky, and easier to adopt.
Accelerated time-to-value
Onboarding time in Kafka cut by 99%
(from 3 weeks to 1 hour)
Reduced risk to revenue
Chaos testing in place, protecting the checkout experience and avoiding costly outages
Faster delivery cycles
Faster rollout of new connectors with reliable workflows, clear visibility, and fewer bottlenecks
Increased platform adoption
Greater Kafka adoption across teams, multiplying the organization's streaming ROI.
“Conduktor definitely eases adoptability. It enhances our onboarding process and allows it to be a smooth transition from not knowing Kafka to, ‘OK, I have everything I need right here.”
Manager of Systems Engineering
What’s in store
This retailer isn’t stopping here. The team is exploring disaster recovery and active-active Kafka architectures using Conduktor—so even in a failover scenario, apps can switch clusters without disruption or touching clients. No more scrambling mid-outage.
The team is also exploring new connectors to stream real-time data into recommendation engines and personalization programs as part of AI initiatives, helping shoppers find relevant products, promoting brand loyalty, and increasing store revenue.
With Conduktor, this retailer has transformed how its teams manage Kafka, simplifying onboarding, promoting Kafka usage, and proactively stress-testing infrastructure. As real-time data becomes increasingly important to this retailer, Conduktor remains a key enabler of innovation, ensuring that streaming Kafka data drives growth.
Advanced filtering and visualization tools for troubleshooting
Chaos testing
