Database outages can be costly for companies, resulting in lost revenue, damaged reputation, and lost time. Two major North American retailers experienced significant losses due to database outages. To prevent future outages, both companies switched to CockroachDB, a distributed cloud-neutral system that ensures high availability and resilience against node, region, or even cloud provider failures. By using CockroachDB, these companies were able to maintain their operations during unplanned outages and improve user experience with faster app load times.