Serving Up Success: How Mission Migrated Lunchbox.io's Multi-Terabyte Database to AWS
Executive Summary
Lunchbox.io, a leading food technology platform serving restaurants internationally, partnered with Mission to execute a complex database migration to AWS. Through Mission's specialized expertise in PostgreSQL and AWS managed services, Lunchbox.io achieved greater system stability, reduced latency, and streamlined operations. This case study explores how Mission's professional services helped Lunchbox.io overcome significant technical challenges while minimizing risk to its restaurant clients.
About Lunchbox.io
Lunchbox.io is a premier food technology platform offering first-party ordering solutions, third-party aggregation, loyalty programs, catering solutions, and third-party dispute management. The company powers websites and mobile applications for restaurant brands, managing menu synchronization across major marketplaces like DoorDash, Grubhub, and Uber Eats for clients operating hundreds to thousands of locations.
"Mission facilitated this project easily with effective communication, productive weekly meetings, and an in-depth knowledge of Postgres. One would be hard-pressed to find a team that is as capable, committed, and hardworking as the Mission team."
Zach Colon,
CTO
Background
Lunchbox.io was working with an unreliable, lesser-known cloud platform. The infrastructure suffered from persistent stability issues and lacked robust managed services, creating ongoing operational challenges that affected both internal teams and restaurant clients.
Challenge
Through a previous acquisition, Lunchbox.io inherited a multi-terabyte PostgreSQL database on a cloud platform that proved unreliable for production workloads. That platform experienced frequent stability issues that impacted service quality for restaurant clients and their guests. The database ran on PostgreSQL 11, which required upgrading to version 14 for continued support and access to modern features. With hundreds of schemas containing complex C libraries, custom functions, and triggers, the technical complexity was substantial. A standard dump-and-restore approach was impractical given the database size and acceptable maintenance windows. Lunchbox.io needed a canary-style rollout to test individual clients separately and migrate database portions incrementally rather than all at once. The migration required specialized PostgreSQL expertise to navigate version-specific changes, rebuild libraries for compatibility, and implement logical replication for the largest schemas. The stakes were high: any missteps could result in data inconsistencies or loss, and there was no simple rollback plan once data migration began.
Why Mission
AWS recommended Mission as a trusted partner through its Migration Acceleration Program (MAP), which provided funding for the project. Rather than attempting the complex migration with internal resources lacking specialized database expertise, Lunchbox.io chose to work with Mission and its deep knowledge of PostgreSQL, particularly older versions requiring careful handling during upgrades. Mission's reputation for executing sophisticated AWS migrations and its comprehensive understanding of managed services like Amazon RDS aligned perfectly with what Lunchbox.io needed to minimize risk and execute the migration successfully.
Why AWS
The decision to migrate to AWS was clear for several reasons. AWS offered the maturity and reliability that Lunchbox.io's restaurant clients required. The platform provides robust managed services like Amazon RDS, eliminating the burden of maintaining self-hosted PostgreSQL clusters. Most of Lunchbox.io's development team, along with the broader open-source community, already possessed strong familiarity with AWS tools and services, reducing the learning curve and accelerating adoption.
"Mission was stellar when it came to the communication and project management aspects of our migration. They were also flexible with our own timelines shifting internally. I wouldn't hesitate to use Mission again for any AWS-related tasks."
Zach Colon,
CTO
Solution
Mission assembled a specialized team to tackle Lunchbox.io's complex migration requirements. The engagement began with a comprehensive analysis of the existing database structure, which contained hundreds of schemas with varying sizes and complexity levels. Mission's PostgreSQL experts developed a phased migration strategy that accommodated Lunchbox.io's preference for incremental, client-by-client testing rather than a risky all-at-once cutover.
The team addressed the PostgreSQL version upgrade from 11 to 14, navigating the technical complications this introduced. They rebuilt C libraries for compatibility with version 14, migrated custom functions and triggers, and handled cases where certain extensions had lost support in newer PostgreSQL versions. For schemas too large to dump and restore within overnight maintenance windows, Mission configured logical replication to keep data synchronized during the transition.
Mission established clear communication channels and project management practices. Weekly meetings were held with detailed agendas and accompanying slides. A dedicated Slack channel provided real-time collaboration. Project boards tracked tasks and progress, keeping all stakeholders informed throughout the engagement. The team remained flexible as Lunchbox.io's internal constraints occasionally slowed the timeline, quickly adjusting to accommodate the client's operational realities.
Throughout the migration, Mission's architects, developers, and project management personnel collaborated closely with Lunchbox.io's engineering team. Everyone from senior architects to individual developers contributed their expertise, creating a collaborative environment where problems were solved quickly and efficiently.
Results
The migration delivered transformative improvements for Lunchbox.io and its restaurant clients. System stability increased dramatically compared to the previous cloud provider's frequent issues and outages. Restaurant clients now experience higher uptime, which translates directly to more reliable service for end customers placing food orders. The platform's reliability gives Lunchbox.io confidence in its infrastructure, that was previously absent.
Database query performance improved measurably. Lower latency queries result in faster page loads for restaurant websites and mobile applications, creating a smoother experience for hungry customers trying to place orders. These performance gains occurred without Lunchbox.io's team needing to become PostgreSQL experts or divert engineering resources from product development.
Operational efficiency increased substantially. By migrating to Amazon RDS, Lunchbox.io eliminated the overhead of maintaining its own PostgreSQL cluster. Internal teams can now focus on building features and serving customers rather than troubleshooting infrastructure problems and building workarounds for unreliable systems.
The DevOps team streamlined its operations by leveraging additional AWS managed services alongside RDS, including managed Redis. The redundant systems previously required to compensate for infrastructure unreliability are no longer necessary, simplifying the overall architecture.
AWS Services Used
- Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL