AWS Well-Architected Tool + Real-Time Architectural Visibility = Optimized Workloads 
Tags: aws, awswellarchitected, howto, realtimedata
Published: 2019-01-07 08:10:47

---
title: AWS Well-Architected Tool + Real-Time Architectural Visibility = Optimized Workloads 
published: true
description: In a dynamic environment like AWS, where resources are scaled up or down on-demand by several team members, there are high chances of change in state of workloads. Access to real-time data for validation of AWS Well-Architected Tool's questions plays a critical role.
tags: AWS, AWS Well Architected, howto, real-time data,  
---

<span style="color: #000000;">Few months ago, we blogged about the</span> <a href="http://blog.totalcloud.io/aws-well-architected-review-should-i-or-not/">importance of AWS Well-Architected review</a>. <span style="color: #000000;">The post covered the importance of performing this exercise under different scenarios. With AWS announcing the availability of</span> <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/well-architected-tool/">AWS Well-Architected tool </a><span style="color: #000000;">at 2018 re:Invent, we got excited and tried it out.</span>

<span style="color: #000000;">For those unaware, AWS Well-Architected tool is a self-service free auditing tool designed for today’s cloud architects. Its objective is to help users build secure, high-performing, resilient, and efficient application infrastructure based on the AWS Well-Architected Framework.</span>

<span style="color: #000000;">The service reviews the state of pre-defined workloads based on the inputs to a set of questions. The questions are regarding <b><i>operational excellence, security, reliability, performance efficiency, and cost optimization</i></b>. It compares the reviewed results to established AWS best practices and generates a downloadable report helping Cloud Architects to design and plan their workloads for optimality.</span>


<h2><span style="color: #000000;">What Next: Validate Your Network, Security and Cost Answers with Real-Time Architectural Visibility</span></h2>
<span style="color: #000000;">As a solutions architect or a cloud architect, you would definitely want to validate your answers against the current state of your workload. Say, you need to answer a question under Security section that asks <em><strong>‘How do you protect your networks?’</strong> </em>Some of the checklists under this question requires you to validate your workloads for network protection, limiting exposure, controlling traffic at all layers, etc. How about having some real-time data with architectural visibility for this?</span>

<span style="color: #000000;">In a dynamic environment like AWS, resources are provisioned, scaled up or scaled down on-demand by several team members across projects. So, there are high chances of change in state of your workloads without your knowledge. Access to real-time data for validation or for that matter regular infra audits plays a critical role.</span>

<span style="color: #000000;">TotalCloud’s Network View and Security Group View provides real-time architectural visibility with end-to-end context of things in that particular workload. Validating answers to questions like network protection, limiting exposure, controlling traffic at all layers, etc. becomes a breeze with these two views. Because the platform provides visual cues on a live topology, making it easier to locate loopholes.</span>

<span style="color: #000000;">Conversely, if you had to validate these data manually, switching between several tabs, it would have been an arduous task.</span>
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<h3><span style="color: #000000;"><strong>Watch this video that shows how TotalCloud complements the AWS Well-Architected Tool. View in detail how the platform helps you reinforce the pillars of AWS Well-Architected Framework, thus keeping your workloads optimized.</strong></span></h3>
</blockquote>

{% youtube thWxtRLg4DU %}

<h2><span style="color: #000000;"><b>Conclusion: Tuning the Benefits of Real-time Architectural Visibility in Unison With AWS Well-Architected Tool </b></span></h2>
<span style="color: #000000;">The benefits of running AWS Well-Architected Tool for your workloads are many. You have a checklist of all the best practices and where your workload stands. When you can validate critical components with real-time visibility into resources, your workloads architecture-level validations becomes a breeze. Plus, it gets easier and 90% faster to debug issues in workloads, identify design flaws, locate misconfigurations, etc. compared to usual auditing.</span>
<h3><span style="color: #000000;">If you haven’t tried TotalCloud yet, do give it a try with</span> <a href="https://totalcloud.io/user-signup.html">our 30-days free trial program</a><span style="color: #000000;">. If you want to see it live in action,</span> <a href="https://totalcloud.io/requst-a-demo.html">send us a request</a><span style="color: #000000;">, and we will be more than happy to give a demo.</span></h3>

<span style="color: #000000;"> Note: Originally published at <a href="https://blog.totalcloud.io/aws-well-architected-tool-real-time-architectural-visibility-optimized-workloads/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> blog.totalcloud.io </a> on January 7, 2019.
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