The "care and feeding" of open source databases is a must, because though the tool itself is free, there is a level of manpower and maintenance required to adjust these tools to specific data needs. Server sprawl is one of the first signs that an open source data architecture is no longer functional, along with unpredictable latency responses and uptime (or downtime). Signal, a leading identity resolution platform, was looking to replace its existing data store which was becoming increasingly expensive and unreliable and had grown to an incredible 550 servers to support growing data needs. This paper details Signal's data requirements and why they chose to move away from the popular open source database, Cassandra, in order to optimize for 25% data growth YoY.