How Uber Upgraded Its Petabyte Scale MySQL Fleet to Version 8

Uber upgraded its MySQL infrastructure from version 5.7 to 8.0 in 2023 to mitigate security risks and enhance performance. The upgrade introduced improved indexing, resource utilization, and new functionalities like window functions and better JSON handling. Uber chose a side-by-side upgrade approach to ensure minimal downtime and easier rollback. The upgrade process was automated to manage the complexity and scale of Uber's infrastructure, which includes over 2,100 clusters and 16,000 nodes. The transition brought significant performance improvements, including reduced latency and query execution time.