ClusterControl helps Latvijas Loto modernize their stack and HA posture without increasing headcount
Latvijas Loto, the state-owned lottery operator in Latvia, runs mission-critical lottery and gaming platforms where availability, integrity, and compliance are non-negotiable. ClusterControl provided an out-of-the-box automation and visibility layer for their Galera Cluster and proxy tier, enabling their small team to modernize their on-prem stack and run a highly available MariaDB Galera environment without adding complexity.
Latvijas Loto organizes and operates number lotteries, instant lotteries, and interactive online games exclusively in Latvia. As a state-owned entity, the company not only focuses on delivering engaging and responsible gaming experiences, but also contributes a portion of its revenue to public and social benefit programs across the country.
The IT Department is responsible for maintaining the technological backbone of these services, including data security, infrastructure management, and day-to-day system operations. With a small operations team, efficiency and reliability are critical.
Latvijas Loto’s challenge: Evolving to modern HA without increasing headcount
Latvijas Loto runs always-on lottery and gaming platforms where outages are highly visible and tightly regulated. For years, the backend ran on familiar MySQL primary–secondary setups. While this architecture worked, it had clear drawbacks:
- Single point of failure at the primary node.
- Manual failover procedures that depended on a few key individuals.
- Limited built-in support for synchronous replication and consistent writes across nodes.
At the same time, the IT department remained deliberately small. Bringing in dedicated database engineers or building a large SRE function was not an option. Any move to a more resilient architecture would have to be:
- Operationally lightweight – manageable by the existing team.
- Observable and predictable – with clear visibility into cluster health and behaviour.
- Automated where possible – to reduce the risk of human error during incidents or maintenance.
MariaDB Galera Cluster emerged as a strong candidate to address the availability and data-consistency challenges. However, the team quickly realised that managing Galera “by hand” – deployments, configuration, upgrades, and failover – would itself become a source of operational risk.
The core challenge became clear: how to move to a modern, fault-tolerant database architecture without increasing operational burden or headcount.
Selecting ClusterControl
Latvijas Loto discovered Severalnines through online research while evaluating tools for Galera management and automation. They compared ClusterControl to a range of open-source utilities and manual approaches but found that these alternatives required more configuration effort and lacked the unified automation and observability they were looking for.
ClusterControl has significantly reduced the operational workload on our small IT team and increased our confidence in the stability of our Galera Cluster.
IT Department Lead, Latvijas Loto
Key reasons for selecting ClusterControl included:
- Out-of-the-box experience – ClusterControl provided guided deployment, configuration, and management for MariaDB Galera, enabling the team to get to a production-ready architecture quickly.
- Built-in high availability and proxy management – Native integration with proxy and load-balancing components, including automatic failover handling, aligned well with their availability requirements.
- Operational efficiency for a small team – A single pane of glass for monitoring, management, and maintenance reduced the need for deep specialist skills and custom tooling.
Experience highlight: Optimized operations
Since moving to the paid version of ClusterControl, Latvijas Loto’s IT department has been able to manage its Galera environment with minimal friction.
Ease of deployment and change management
- The team used ClusterControl’s automated deployment and configuration capabilities to stand up and standardize their Galera Cluster and proxies.
- Subsequent maintenance activities (such as updates and configuration changes) are coordinated through the UI rather than ad-hoc scripts.
Monitoring and visibility
- ClusterControl provides comprehensive monitoring and alerting, enabling the team to quickly assess cluster health and investigate anomalies.
- Centralized visibility into logs and analytics simplifies troubleshooting and reduces the time needed to understand what is happening in the cluster.
High availability and proxy control
- Integrated proxy and failover management enables Latvijas Loto to maintain continuity of service even during node issues or planned maintenance windows.
- Proxy control through the ClusterControl interface makes it straightforward to manage traffic routing without deep proxy-specific expertise.
The net result is a stable, low-maintenance environment where ClusterControl is most heavily used during scheduled maintenance windows for updates, health checks, and verification.
These outcomes are especially important in a regulated, high-stakes environment like national lottery operations, where both uptime and auditability are essential.
Results and benefits
While the primary aim was operational simplification, Latvijas Loto has realized several concrete benefits from its investment in ClusterControl:
- Reduced operational workload – Routine checks, manual failover handling, and custom scripting have been largely replaced by built-in ClusterControl workflows and dashboards, freeing time for higher-value projects.
- Improved confidence in system stability – With better visibility and controlled failover paths, the IT team has greater confidence that the database layer will perform reliably during critical lottery and gaming operations.
- Streamlined monitoring and troubleshooting – Unified views of metrics, logs, and cluster status mean that issues can be identified and investigated more quickly, without jumping between disparate tools.
Looking forward
Latvijas Loto continues to see open-source technologies as a strategic foundation for its infrastructure. The IT department aims to adopt reliable, well-supported open-source components that provide a balance of flexibility, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness.
ClusterControl will remain a central piece of this strategy for the database tier. The organization plans to continue managing and monitoring its Galera Cluster and proxy layer with ClusterControl and to leverage new capabilities as they become relevant to their environment. Looking to improve your on-prem or hybrid data ops’ reliability?
Explore ClusterControl and install it in 10 minutes to launch your first cluster with our 30-day free trial today!
Summary
Headcount-light ops
CC centralizes deployment, monitoring, and maintenance in a single UI, allowing their small operations team to run a modern HA setup without adding specialist database headcount.
Lottery-grade availability
CC enables the deployment of a three-node multi-master Galera Cluster with two HA proxy nodes, providing a resilient database layer for mission-critical lottery and gaming systems.
Routinized maintenance
Standardized workflows, health checks, and visibility into cluster status help the team handle updates and investigate issues with greater confidence and less ad-hoc work.
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