The AWS Well-Architected Framework is “a guide that provides a consistent approach to evaluate cloud architectures” and “provides guidance to help implement designs.”
Operational Excellence
Focus: Run and monitor systems that deliver business value
Security
Focus: Protect information, systems, and assets while delivering business value
Reliability
Focus: System’s ability to recover from disruptions and meet demand
Performance Efficiency
Focus: Maximize performance using computation resources efficiently
Cost Optimization
Focus: Ongoing requirement for efficient architectural design
Sustainability
Focus: Build architectures that maximize efficiency and reduce waste
In AWS, you can view your entire workload (applications, infrastructure, policies, governance, and operations) as code. This enables applying the same engineering discipline used for application code to every element of your stack. Investing in implementing operations activities as code maximizes productivity, minimizes error rates, and sets up automated responses.
Your architecture presents a much stronger security presence by implementing these principles and preparing for security events. Automation of security best practices and protection of data in transit and at rest are key components.
Traditional environments struggle with single points of failure, lack of automation, and lack of elasticity. The Reliability pillar helps prevent these issues and ensures properly designed architecture with high availability, fault tolerance, and overall redundancy.
“Mechanical sympathy” means using a tool or system with understanding of how it operates best. Use the technology approach that aligns best to what you’re trying to achieve, such as considering data access patterns when selecting database or storage approaches.
This is an iterative process that should be refined throughout your production lifetime. Understanding your architecture’s efficiency in relation to goals can remove unneeded expense. Pay only for resources you use and leverage managed services for lower cost per transaction.
Addresses long-term environmental, economic, and societal impact of business activities. This continuous effort includes initial selection of efficient programming languages, adoption of modern algorithms, efficient data storage techniques, and minimizing requirements for high-powered end-user hardware.
The AWS WA Tool is a self-service tool providing on-demand access to current AWS best practices. Key features:
The framework provides a systematic approach to building and evaluating cloud architectures, ensuring they meet both technical requirements and business objectives while following established best practices.