Trust and reliability are everything at Americor, and a stable database is foundational to our work. People come to us stressed about their debt and anxious about their future. The last thing they need is to worry about the reliability of Americor’s server environment.
Americor is a debt-consolidation FinTech that has negotiated more than $3 billion in total debt relief since 2009. As a trusted, accredited partner, we have helped more than half a million Americans regain control of their life and get a fresh financial start.
As director of DevOps, I’m responsible for all of Americor’s infrastructure and DevOps operations. My work ensures the stability and security of our database, which powers the CRM that tracks our customers through their debt consolidation journey. The smallest inconsistency or blip of downtime can have a big impact on customers’ lives and Americor’s regulatory compliance.
Our legacy database made my job much harder.
Americor
Financial Services
500 +
Percona Expert Support, Percona Expert Consulting and Services
MySQL
Our previous environment included an aging MariaDB Galera cluster. It had multiple replication paths, terabytesized databases, and required high operational overhead to maintain. Everything worked, but took a lot of energy and effort to keep it going. We became reactive firefighters with little time for operational improvements.
Despite our efforts, we still encountered occasional latency and critical workflow issues. If we made a schema change, for example, it could take down some of the nodes in the cluster, potentially breaking downstream replication and impacting business intelligence.
It was nerve-wracking for my team. To decrease the risk and become more effective, we had to upgrade.
We knew we needed a cost-effective approach to better performance and observability along with strong clustering. In our view, that meant migrating from MariaDB to the latest version of MySQL.
We’re a very strong DevOps team, but we didn’t have a dedicated database architect. It’s a specific role, and when you’re several versions behind like we were, it’s important to have that specialized support mechanism. We were searching for a partner with deep knowledge who could deliver guidance and expertise.
Percona had it all: strong clustering, enterprise-grade MySQL support, and deep knowledge. Percona is well respected in the field, and that was a driving factor in our decision to move forward with Percona XtraDB Cluster to run MySQL 8.4.
The task ahead was far more than a lift and shift of a single database. It was a major upgrade, and we approached it as a full engineering project.
We couldn’t migrate directly from our existing MariaDB to the latest version of MySQL—the compatibility differences were too great. Instead, we planned to divide the project into phases, spending months updating migrations and making changes to our software development team to make sure we could handle the transition.
Every step along that path had to be well planned and executed, which is why we employed Percona Expert Consulting and Services. Percona was embedded in my team for the entire process, guiding us through the architecture review, migration planning, and performance tuning. They were very hands-on, and we could tell we were dealing with world-renowned database experts.
Every upgrade had its challenges: troubleshooting redo logs, I/O capacity for our workloads, GTID issues for replication, locking behavior, and debugging schema incompatibility issues. Our team probably could’ve solved the issues on our own, but it would’ve added time and effort, and this was a business-critical migration. Having experts at the ready was key to our success.
Finally, it was time for the cutover. The stakes couldn’t have been higher: With around 20 services depending on our CRM, downtime could cost Americor six figures per hour. The cutover had to be as seamless as possible, and we developed a rollback strategy, just in case.
To minimize downtime, we used a replication-based cutover window, slowly moving from MariaDB 10.5.16 to MySQL 5.7 to 8.0 to 8.4.
We validated the data for consistency at each step. By the time we migrated to MySQL 8.4, all the data flowed with zero errors.
It took about a year from engaging Percona to completing the migration. Without Percona’s help, it would have taken much longer.
Could our DevOps team have done such a massive project? I’m sure we could have, but leaning on Percona’s expertise de-risked the experience. Whatever issues we faced, we knew Percona had seen it before and would ease us through.
Today, our database cluster environment is much more predictable. We’re on the latest version of MySQL with three nodes, and enjoy better observability, more consistent behavior under critical load, fewer incidents, and zero compatibility issues.
Before migrating to Percona, our team dealt with database incidents roughly once a week, typically pulling one or two engineers into firefighting each time. Since the migration, those incidents have been essentially eliminated. That’s 30–40 engineering hours each month that the team has redirected from reactive database work toward roadmap priorities.
The shift has been a meaningful one for us. Our on-call has improved significantly as a result, and the team is no longer scared they’ll break something by making a schema change. A better work environment might not show up on a balance sheet, but I notice the difference in how the team operates day to day.
What does show on the balance sheet is greater efficiency. Spending less time on incidents and debugging issues translates directly to operational savings. Moving to the latest version of MySQL also gave us better control over our environment, reducing our exposure to a security breach.
The biggest win is that consistency. We aren’t dealing with the same class of edge-case legacy issues anymore.
My advice to any DevOps leader thinking about an update: Don’t wait.
Consider the complete cost of an aging cluster, including instability, inefficiency, personnel burnout, security risk, not to mention customer frustrations. Don’t underestimate the compatibility differences involved. Plan the upgrade properly, test any changes, develop a replication strategy, and treat it just as seriously as any other big engineering project.
And then, find a partner who can guide your team every step of the way.
It all comes down to trust. We have to handle sensitive information and stay on top of our regulatory requirements, and Percona helped us get there. Now, Americor has the security and stability our customers can rely on as they tackle the next steps toward a stronger financial future.
Americor Holdings, LLC (“Americor”) through its various subsidiaries is a leading provider of consumer financial services. These include debt relief services (through its Americor Funding, LLC subsidiary), personal loans (through its Credit9, LLC subsidiary), and mortgage services (through its Mission Loans, LLC subsidiary). In November 2025, Americor announced the closing of AMDR ABS Trust 2025-1, a $153.15 million asset-backed securitization collateralized by debt settlement fees – the first of its kind. Americor’s commitment to financial wellness extends across its range of products and services, aimed at helping consumers manage their financial challenges at all stages of their lives. To learn more about Americor and its various product and service offerings, please visit its websites at americor.com, credit9.com, and missionloans.com.
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