# Engineering a Historic Moment: Shopify Gets Ready for Cannabis in Canada

DevFeed: [Engineering a Historic Moment: Shopify Gets Ready for Cannabis in Canada](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/engineering-a-historic-moment-shopify-gets-ready-for-cannabis-in-canada-1381.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://shopify.engineering/engineering-a-historic-moment-shopify-gets-ready-for-cannabis-in-canada>)

Author: Jason Hiltz-Laforge

Published: 2019-02-07T16:30:00Z

Content type: article

Language: en

Sources: [Shopify Engineering](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/shopify-engineering.md>), [Shopify Engineering - Shopify Engineering](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/shopify-engineering-shopify-engineering.md>)

Topics: [Shopify](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/shopify.md>), [Google Cloud Platform (GCP)](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/google-cloud.md>), [Terraform](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/terraform.md>), [Cloud](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/cloud.md>), [Kubernetes](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/kubernetes.md>), [migration](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/migration.md>), [data](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/data.md>), [Networks](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/networks.md>), [DDoS](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/ddos.md>)

Tags: [attacks](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/attacks.md>), [cloud](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/cloud.md>), [cloud-platform](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/cloud-platform.md>), [clusters](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/clusters.md>), [compute](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/compute.md>), [core](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/core.md>), [engineering](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/engineering.md>), [google-cloud](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/google-cloud.md>), [google-cloud-platform](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/google-cloud-platform.md>), [industry](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/industry.md>), [infrastructure](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/infrastructure.md>), [kubernetes](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/kubernetes.md>), [migration](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/migration.md>), [networks](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/networks.md>), [platform](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/platform.md>), [resiliency](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/resiliency.md>), [retail](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/retail.md>), [shopify](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/shopify.md>), [terraform](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/terraform.md>), [warehouse](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/warehouse.md>)

## AI overview

Shopify describes the engineering work required to support cannabis retailers in Canada after legalization in 2018. The team built a Montreal-based regional deployment on Google Cloud Platform to satisfy Canadian data-residency requirements, using Google Kubernetes Engine, Google Compute Engine, Terraform, regional clusters, workload segregation, and a regional data warehouse. It also modeled traffic scenarios and provisioned capacity for launches, media-driven surges, sales peaks, and possible denial-of-service attacks.

## Source excerpt

On October 17th, 2018, Canada ended a 95-year history of cannabis prohibition. For Shopify, the legalization of cannabis marked a new industry entering the Canadian retail market and we worked with governments and licensed sellers across the country to provide a safe, reliable and scalable platform for their business. For our engineering team, it meant significant changes to our platform to meet the strict requirements for this newly regulated industry.