How FranConnect seamlessly upgraded MSK Clusters and strengthened AWS SQS expertise

Industry:

Enterprise SaaS

Headquarters:

Herndon, Virginia

Founded in:

2000

Company Size:

201 - 500 employees

Overview

FranConnect is a leading provider of franchise management solutions, trusted by brands worldwide to drive operational efficiency, accelerate growth, and improve governance. As a cloud-first organization, FranConnect relies heavily on AWS services to deliver a reliable, secure, and high-performing platform for its customers.

Values delivered

Flawless upgrade to MSK v3.9 with zero downtime
Resolved recurring operational issues
Enhanced security, governance and compliance standards
Customized training workshops on Amazon SQS
Improved system scalability and reliability

Challenges

FranConnect’s reliance on Amazon SQS made it central to their messaging and workflow architecture. As the company scaled, several issues surfaced:

Configuration Ambiguity

Unclear SQS best practices caused frequent misconfigurations, performance bottlenecks, and recurring reliability concerns. These issues created operational inefficiencies and made enforcing consistent configuration hygiene increasingly difficult as the platform scaled.

Troubleshooting Delays

The absence of structured workflows and real-time diagnostics prolonged incident resolution, delaying delivery pipelines. This significantly reduced operational efficiency and affected the speed of product releases across teams.

High Dependency on External Support

Routine SQS issues often required escalation to external support, slowing resolution times and driving up operational costs. This reliance limited engineering self-sufficiency and distracted teams from innovation-focused initiatives.

Frequent Operational Issues

Repetitive SQS-related incidents frequently disrupted workflows and drained engineering capacity. The recurring firefighting reduced productivity, increased costs, and impacted morale by keeping teams away from core business priorities.

Mission-Critical MSK Upgrade

Upgrading to MSK 3.9 was essential for platform resilience but carried risks of downtime, replication errors, and instability. A carefully planned, risk-mitigated migration strategy was required to avoid disruption.

Solution

CloudKeeper team implemented a multi-faceted approach focusing on targeted training, a critical infrastructure upgrade, and enhanced security governance. The was designed to resolve immediate issues while building long-term resilience.

AWS SQS Training Program

A tailored training program for 50 engineers focused on best practices, real-world troubleshooting, and interactive sessions. This initiative empowered teams with the expertise to operate SQS confidently and independently.

Flawless MSK Upgrade

Through impact assessments, rollback planning, replication fine-tuning, and proactive error resolution, Franconnect successfully executed the MSK 3.9 migration. The process delivered zero downtime and no post-upgrade incidents.

Security and Governance Enhancements

Service Control Policies (SCPs) were implemented to prevent unauthorized changes, enforce compliance, and strengthen governance. These security measures improved operational resilience across Franconnect’s AWS environment.

Post-Optimization Impact

The collaboration empowered the client’s engineering teams with stronger self-sufficiency, stability, and security while eliminating recurring operational hurdles.

Zero SQS-related support tickets raised since the training.
Engineers now independently manage, optimize, and troubleshoot SQS.
Enhanced system scalability and reliability post the upgrade.
SCP implementation reduced misconfiguration risks.

FranConnect’s leadership praised the effectiveness of the training and the flawless execution of upgrades.