"Reliance on AWS MSK introduced a level of unpredictability that was incompatible with our SLAs. Mandatory OS updates would trigger broker restarts and uncontrollable partition reassignments, directly impacting game latency. AutoMQ allowed us to regain control. Its stateless architecture turns heavy maintenance operations into metadata updates, making cluster upgrades invisible to our players. The migration itself was seamless—AutoMQ's Kafka Linking technology worked exactly as promised, with zero downtime."
Engineering Team, Avia Games
The Challenge
AviaGames runs competitive mobile gaming experiences where millions of players compete in real-time tournaments. Their core game event streaming infrastructure initially ran on AWS MSK, but they faced critical operational challenges that impacted both stability and player experience:
MSK's Unpredictable Maintenance Impact
The mission-critical game event stream ran on AWS MSK, which performed periodic OS patches and maintenance operations. These operations triggered broker restarts and automatic partition rebalancing.
- Restart and rebalance timing was unpredictable and uncontrollable
- No ability to set dedicated maintenance windows for MSK clusters
- Operations could occur during peak gaming hours or live tournaments, causing latency spikes and stability risks
- Passive acceptance of AWS's maintenance schedule created business risk
Operational Disruptions Hard to Control
Every MSK maintenance operation or node change triggered lengthy data migrations and partition reassignments. These operations consumed significant network and I/O resources while creating uncontrollable disruptions to live gaming workloads—exactly when reliability mattered most.
Why AutoMQ
AviaGames chose AutoMQ to eliminate MSK's operational unpredictability and regain full control over their streaming infrastructure:
Innovative Diskless Kafka Architecture
AutoMQ's S3-based compute-storage separation makes brokers completely stateless. Brokers no longer hold data—they're fully "stateless."
- Node restarts and scaling operations only involve metadata changes
- No large-scale partition movement or data replication
- Infrastructure operations become predictable and controllable
- Gaming workloads remain unaffected during maintenance
Ultra-Fast Elasticity with Zero Business Impact
Scaling no longer requires rebalancing or data migration. AutoMQ's scaling operations complete in seconds to tens of seconds, making them virtually invisible to live gaming services.
- Schedule maintenance during actual low-traffic windows
- Scale capacity instantly during tournament launches
- Eliminate the fear of touching production infrastructure
- Maintain consistent player experience regardless of backend operations
The AutoMQ team worked closely with AviaGames' infrastructure team to migrate from MSK smoothly, ensuring zero disruption to live gaming services during the transition.
The Results
Since migrating from AWS MSK to AutoMQ, AviaGames has achieved significant improvements in both operational control and system reliability:
Key Metrics
Infrastructure cost reduction
Scaling time vs. hours with MSK
Manual intervention needed
Kafka API compatibility
Dramatically Improved Stability
Kafka operations like node restarts, scaling, and version upgrades now have minimal impact on gaming workloads. The cluster runs smoothly during high-concurrency tournament scenarios, and maintenance can be scheduled during actual low-traffic periods.
Transformed Operational Efficiency
Scaling evolved from traditional Kafka's "lengthy data migration + high-risk operations" model to AutoMQ's "standardized, automated second-level elasticity." Overall operational complexity and risk decreased significantly, while the team gained confidence to optimize infrastructure proactively.
Beyond metrics, AutoMQ restored predictability and control to AviaGames' streaming infrastructure. The team no longer fears touching production Kafka clusters, and players experience consistent performance regardless of backend maintenance schedules.
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