AWS Well-Architected Framework 1O1
By: Piyush Jalan
Tags: Cloud Computing, AWS, Framework, Amazon Web Services, Well Architected

The AWS Well-Architected Framework assists you in understanding the benefits and drawbacks of decisions you make while creating systems on AWS. Using the Framework, customers will discover architectural best practices for creating and maintaining cloud-based systems that are reliable, secure, efficient, and cost-effective. It allows customers to continuously compare their designs to best practices and discover areas for improvement. The architecture review process is not an audit instrument, but rather a productive discourse regarding architectural decisions.

The framework establishes a standardized method for assessing systems against the attributes customers expect from modern cloud-based systems, as well as the repairs necessary to attain those attributes. This framework is meant for technology professionals such as chief technology officers (CTOs), architects, developers, and members of the operations team. It offers AWS best practices and techniques for developing and running a cloud workload, as well as links to additional implementation details and architectural patterns. The AWS Well-Architected Tool (AWS WA Tool) is a cloud service that allows customers to examine and assess their architecture using the AWS Well-Architected Framework in a consistent manner.

The AWS Well-Architected Framework is based on five pillars — operational excellence, security, reliability, performance efficiency, and cost optimization.

Customers generally have a central team for technology architecture in on-premises systems, which functions as an overlay to other product or feature teams to verify they are following best practices. Technical Architects, Solutions Architects, Data Architects, Networking Architects, and Security Architects are common jobs in technology architecture teams. As part of an enterprise architectural capability, these teams frequently use TOGAF or the Zachman Framework.

The Well-Architected Framework provides a set of generic design principles to help with successful cloud design:

Operational Excellence

The capacity to support development and operate workloads effectively, acquire insight into customers’ operations, and constantly enhance supporting processes and procedures to generate business value is included in the Operational Excellence pillar. Design principles for operational excellence in the cloud:

Perform operations as code

Make frequent, small, reversible changes

Refine operations procedures frequently

Anticipate failure

Learn from all operational failures

Security

The Security pillar includes the capacity to safeguard data, systems, and assets in order to benefit from cloud technologies and increase customer security. Design principles for security in the cloud:

Implement a strong identity foundation

Enable traceability

Apply security at all layers

Automate security best practices

Protect data in transit and at rest

Keep people away from data

Prepare for security events

Reliability

The Reliability pillar comprises a workload’s ability to fulfill its intended function accurately and consistently when expected. This involves being able to run and test the workload during its entire lifespan. Design principles for reliability in the cloud:

Automatically recover from failure

Test recovery procedures

Scale horizontally to increase aggregate workload availability

Stop guessing capacity

Manage change in automation

Performance Efficiency

The capacity to use computational resources efficiently to satisfy system needs, and to retain that efficiency as demand changes and technology improve, is included in the Performance Efficiency pillar. Design principles for performance efficiency in the cloud:

Democratize advanced technologies

Go global in minutes

Use serverless architectures

Experiment more often

Consider mechanical sympathy

Cost Optimization

The ability to manage systems to offer business value at the lowest possible cost is included in the Cost Optimization pillar. The cost optimization pillar introduces design concepts, best practices, and questions. Design principles for cost optimization in the cloud:

Implement Cloud Financial Management

Adopt a consumption model

Measure overall efficiency

Stop spending money on undifferentiated heavy lifting

Analyze and attribute expenditure

Architectures must be reviewed in a consistent manner, with a blameless approach that invites deep dives. It should be a light-weight approach that is more like a discussion than an audit. The goal of examining an architecture is to discover any important concerns that need to be addressed or areas that may be improved. The AWS Well-Architected Framework is consistent with how AWS evaluates systems and services internally.

Using the Well-architected Framework in architecture will assist clients in producing reliable and efficient systems, allowing them to concentrate on their functional requirements.

Please feel free to write @ piyush.jalan93@gmail.com for any queries on AWS Well-Architected Framework & stay tuned for next write-up.

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