Questions you need to ask for Well Architected Sustainability
Tags: serverless, aws, cloud, architecture
Published: 2022-12-08 15:30:51

AWS have a [Sustainability Pillar](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/wellarchitected/latest/sustainability-pillar/wellarchitected-sustainability-pillar.pdf#sustainability-pillar) as part of their [Well Architected Framework](https://theserverlessedge.com/how-to-make-well-architected-work-for-organisations-introducing-the-scorp-review-cycle-part-1/). This means we have proven guidance, advice and questions to leverage on our path to delivering Well Architected Sustainable solutions for AWS well architected framework questions.


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/9enqz2nblxcjwamgidxu.png)
_AWS – Shared Sustainability Model_

## Sustainability Questions
I did a review of the [Sustainability Pillar white paper](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/wellarchitected/latest/sustainability-pillar/sustainability-pillar.html). And I pulled together a list of “How do you?” sustainability questions. You can start applying these to your workloads as part of your Well Architected Review process.

## Region selection for sustainability
The next question is: how do you choose a Region to implement your workloads. And is based on both your business requirements and sustainability goals?

## Sustainable user behavior patterns

- How do you scale infrastructure with user load?
- How do you align SLAs with sustainability goals?
- How do you eliminate creation and maintenance of unused assets?
- How do you optimize geographic placement of workloads for user locations?
- How do you optimize team member resources for activities performed?

## Software and architecture patterns for sustainability

- How do you optimize software and architecture for asynchronous and scheduled jobs?
- How do you remove or refactor workload components with low or no use?
- How do you optimize areas of code that consume the most time or resources?
- How do you optimize impact on customer devices and equipment?
- How do you use software patterns and architectures that best support data access and storage patterns?

## Data patterns

- How do you implement your data classification policy ?
- How do you use technologies that support data access and storage patterns?
- How do you use lifecycle policies to delete unnecessary data?
- How do you minimize over-provisioning in block storage?
- How do you remove unneeded or redundant data?
- How do you use shared file systems or object storage to access common data?
- How do you minimize data movement across networks?
- How do you backup data only when difficult to recreate?
- Hardware patterns
- How do you use the minimum amount of hardware to meet your needs?
- How do you use instance types with the least impact?
- How do you use managed services?
- How do you optimize your use of GPUs?

## Sustainable Development and deployment process

- How do you adopt methods that can rapidly introduce sustainability improvements?
- How do you keep your workload up to date?
- How do you increase utilization of build environments?
- How do you use managed device farms for testing?

## Well Architected MindGraph

I have leveraged mind maps throughout [my career](https://theserverlessedge.com/watch-matt-coulter-liberty-mutual-reminisce-about-cdk-patterns-serverless-and-the-value-flywheel/). [Simon Wardley](https://twitter.com/swardley/status/1466017856580108289) points out that they are not real maps. So I now call them mindgraphs :-).

I have used Well Architected mindgraph heavily in my own work over the past few years to [ask better questions](https://theserverlessedge.com/ask-better-questions-for-long-term-value/) and with the addition of the sustainability questions that will continue.

The [xmind format](https://www.xmind.net/) of the [Mindgraph](https://github.com/ServerlessEdge/mindgraphs/blob/main/AWS%20Well%20Architected%20Framework.xmind) is available here, [PNG version](https://github.com/ServerlessEdge/mindgraphs/raw/main/AWS%20Well%20Architected%20Framework.png) here.

## AWS Well Architected Framework


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/0x6547aspnqj9wcqc72j.png)