01
Parallel architecture
We built the new platform alongside the old, with a synchronization layer pushing every dispatch event into both systems. Customers stayed on the legacy stack while we proved the new one in shadow mode for three months.
All work
SaaS · Logistics2024
Replatforming a fifteen-year-old freight system, with no customer downtime.
We replaced an aging freight-management system handling $2.1B in annual volume in nine months, with a zero-downtime cutover. The replacement runs at one-quarter the operational cost.
- Client
- North-Pacific 3PL operator
- Vertical
- Logistics & freight
- Region
- North America
- Duration
- 9 months
- Team
- 5 engineers · 1 designer
- Role
- Replatform · greenfield build · cutover
Overview
What we walked into.
Our partner runs a continental freight network — 1,200 owner-operators, 3,400 enterprise customers, $2.1 billion in dispatched volume per year. The system underneath was a 2009-vintage Java + Oracle stack: original architects long gone, vendor support ending, and every quarter brought a new outage that cost the business real money.
The system couldn't be taken offline. A single hour of downtime represented over $250k in stalled freight, not counting SLA penalties. We had to replatform an actively-used, revenue-critical system without any visible disruption to customers, drivers, or partner integrations.
What we built.
02
Customer-by-customer cutover
Once the new platform matched the old in every benchmark, we migrated customers in waves — 50 per week, never the largest accounts in the same window. Twelve weeks of progressive cutover, never more than 8% of volume on the new system at once.
03
Operational scaffolding
Real observability from day one — distributed tracing, eval-style consistency checks between old and new for six months, dashboards the customer's ops team trained on before they needed them.
Outcome
What shipped.
The cutover finished in week 36. The legacy stack was decommissioned the next quarter. The new platform runs at 23% of the operational cost of the old one, with sub-second response times on every critical path and zero customer-visible downtime through the migration.
$2.1BAnnual freight volume
9 moBuild duration
0Customer downtime
¼Operating cost
Cinnabar replaced a fifteen-year-old system without a single phone call from a customer about it. That's the bar I want to hold every future engagement to.
Stack
- TypeScript
- Node.js
- PostgreSQL
- Redis
- Kafka
- AWS
- Terraform
Ready when you are.
A 30-minute conversation. We'll listen. If we're a fit, we'll say so. If not, we'll point you to someone who is.
No discovery decks · No sales calls · One conversation