One area of focus is pairing in-store connectivity with mobile ordering. Retailers and restaurants alike need global network services that power this connectivity to ensure reliability for both team members and customers. But these connections need to be secure, scalable, and always available.

Rather than build a customer store network with middleware to connect mobile apps and PoS systems, some are leveraging ngrok as an alternative. In this article, we’re sharing the story of one customer who was able to use the ngrok platform to power in-store connectivity to mobile ordering and ultimately serve millions of customers daily.

By leveraging ngrok's universal gateway, this customer drastically reduced the time and resources required for network integration, enhanced transaction security, and improved customer experience through real-time data accuracy.

Top priorities were security, scale, and availability

In the competitive landscape, a customer needed to process transactions from over 10,000 stores and approximately 20,000 point-of-sale (PoS) systems.

The challenge was to establish reliable, secure, and scalable network connections for each PoS system so that they  could handle the high volume of online orders sent to those stores.

The customer relied on traditional network setups that were difficult to keep secure and complex in nature. These networks were labor-intensive and time-consuming. Each of their stores is actually a franchise, which means no owned infrastructure and diverse networking challenges across locations. Scalability and security were both critical, and complex.

The customer needed a solution that could securely connect their mobile ordering app to the PoS systems across their physical stores without additional extensive network infrastructure and skilled networking professionals was paramount. An additional requirement ngrok was able to serve was to provide an individual endpoint for every one of thousands of PoS devices.

Because of how complex and labor-intensive the traditional network setups were, the customer wanted to find an alternative solution. After all, it took two IT professionals and four weeks to set up the firewall and network connectivity per store. With 300-400 stores being added each year, this was a significant investment.

Connecting mobile ordering, middleware, and PoS systems

The customer began looking for a solution to solve their network connectivity challenges and provide an endpoint for every PoS device within their network. They needed a platform that could meet specific criteria for security, scale, and availability. Here’s what they were seeking:

• Security: Data needed to be secure and obfuscated “end-to-end” including from the mobile ordering middleware, in transit to the PoS system. When it came to finding a new solution, the customer looked for robust security to protect sensitive customer data and transactions. They required a solution that ensured end-to-end encryption and could securely handle the transfer of data from the mobile app to the PoS systems. ngrok’s ability to provide secure tunneling with mTLS (Mutual TLS) encryption at each PoS system, met this need by creating a trusted channel where data could be safely exchanged without exposure to external threats.
• Scale: The customer needed a solution that could not only support their current transaction volume but also scale to accommodate future growth as well as seasonal spikes in demand. ngrok’s infrastructure can dynamically scale, ensuring the 10,000+ stores and ~20,000+ PoS systems would be supported right away, and continue to easily be scaled up as more stores and PoS systems were added.
• Availability: To enhance the customer experience, the customer required a solution that could process transactions in real-time, ensuring that order, tax, and pricing information was accurate and up-to-date. ngrok’s proven data transmission capabilities ensured that customers received immediate feedback on their orders, contributing to a superior  user experience.

Ultimately, the customer found ngrok and believed it could meet their high standards. After an initial development phase where ngrok was integrated into the existing architecture, the PoS systems are now tethered via mTLS authentication and encryption to the e-commerce ordering middleware via ngrok tunnels. Four developers from the IT team operate and monitor the e-commerce middleware, ngrok, and PoS systems in production to provide customer mobile ordering. 

Our customer used ngrok to provide:

• Centralized e-commerce integration to PoS systems across stores
• Secure order transport with end-to-end data obfuscation
• Built-in reliability with two secure agents per store (one per PoS machine) 
• Ability to scale orders and connections as needed for campaigns
• Quick discovery, logging, and analysis of millions of orders 

In short, this customer now relies on the ngrok service to connect their mobile ordering application, middleware, and PoS systems together. The ngrok service provides secure network transport from the store PoS to the -commerce ordering middleware.

This architecture allows for centralized integration of the e-commerce middleware and the ability to do secure mobile ordering to the store as well as database updates. 

Without ngrok, this customer would have had to build and operate firewall and network connectivity on a store-by-store basis. An initiative to implement, test, scale, operate, and extend this store network would require a dedicated team.

The technical implementation of ngrok

The customer’s implementation of ngrok involved setting up secure tunnels from their PoS systems to the e-commerce ordering middleware. This setup used ngrok's dynamic URLs for ease of integration and management, reducing the need for manual configuration in each store. The use of mTLS added an extra layer of security by ensuring encrypted connections between the client and server, mitigating the risks of data interception.

Network architecture

The network architecture was reevaluated to accommodate the secure tunnels that ngrok would establish. This involved designing a network topology that allowed for secure, direct connections from the mobile app to the in-store PoS systems via ngrok’s tunnels. The updated design focused on optimizing data flow for efficiency and reliability while maintaining robust security measures to protect against potential threats.

Integration with existing PoS systems

The PoS systems at the customer’s stores were configured to connect through ngrok’s secure tunnels, ensuring that all transaction data transmitted to and from the mobile ordering app was encrypted and secure.

Custom integration scripts and APIs were developed to facilitate real-time data exchange between the PoS systems and the ordering middleware, enhancing the accuracy and speed of order processing.

Testing and validation

It was critical to ensure that ngrok’s secure tunnels were functioning correctly and that the data flow was both secure and efficient. We supported rigorous testing, including load testing to simulate high-traffic scenarios and ensure the system’s scalability.

Security audits and penetration testing were also performed to identify and rectify any vulnerabilities, ensuring the integrity of the network.

Deployment and beyond

Our customer initially deployed ngrok in a controlled environment to monitor its performance and integration with existing systems.

Following successful testing and validation, the solution was scaled up, rolling out to stores nationwide in a phased approach to ensure smooth transition and minimal operational disruption.

Continuous monitoring was established to ensure the performance and security of the ngrok tunnels. This included real-time analytics to track transaction flows, system health, and potential security threats.

Reliable service creates customer trust

The customer’s implementation of ngrok was complemented by an exceptional support framework. The support structure, including Slack and email channels, provide the customer with direct and timely access to ngrok’s technical experts, reinforcing the reliability of ngrok as a partner in maintaining continuous operations.

Additionally, the implementation meets the customer’s SLA for store uptime. The customer has now successfully processed millions of transactions daily, with ngrok’s infrastructure enabling seamless handling of increased order volumes, especially during peak promotional events, without any loss in system performance or reliability.

Recent traffic data analysis revealed an average of approximately 17,000 tunnels per day, with peak days seeing up to 35,440 tunnels, illustrating ngrok's capacity to manage substantial spikes in usage without compromising service quality. This performance metric underscores ngrok’s ability to support the customer’s high-traffic requirements, ensuring frictionless customer experiences even during the busiest times.

By adopting a secure, scalable, and efficient network solution with ngrok, this coffee and donuts retailer has set a new standard for integrating technology in customer service, paving the way for future innovations in the sector. 

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