The Well-Architected Framework is not a one-time process but rather an ongoing set of guidelines that should be applied throughout the lifecycle of a system on AWS.
The AWS Well-Architected Framework is a set of best practices and guidelines provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS) to help customers design, build, and deploy applications and workloads on the AWS cloud in a secure, reliable, cost-effective, and efficient manner. The framework aims to ensure that solutions are aligned with business needs while adhering to industry best practices.
Best practices are approaches, processes and methods that have been shown to lead to good outcomes.
At the beginning, we have the Well-Architected Framework that is based on five key pillars.
Operational Excellence
This pillar focuses on running and monitoring systems to deliver business value and continually improve processes and procedures. It includes practices such as automation, reacting to events, defining operational standards, and regularly reviewing procedures.
Security
Security is of utmost importance in the cloud. This pillar includes best practices to protect data, resources, and assets. It encompasses identity and access management, data protection, incident response, network security, and compliance.
Reliability
The reliability pillar concentrates on the ability of a system to recover from failures and automatically scale to meet demand. It involves strategies like redundancy, disaster recovery, and fault tolerance.
Performance Efficiency
This pillar is about optimizing resource utilization and selecting appropriate types and sizes of resources. It involves techniques like load balancing, caching, and using AWS services that are designed to be highly performant.
Cost Optimization
Cost optimization focuses on avoiding unnecessary costs and optimizing spending. This pillar includes practices like resource right-sizing, choosing the right pricing models, and taking advantage of cost management tools.
Sustainability
This pillar was introduced in 2021. It introduced a clear process for selecting Regions, as well as tools for right-sizing services and improving the overall utilization of resources in the AWS Cloud.
It’s important to know that the Well-Architected Framework is not a one-time process but rather an ongoing set of guidelines that should be applied throughout the lifecycle of a system on AWS. For this reason, AWS provides tools, documentation and best practices to help customers apply these principles effectively.
Read Part 2 to learn about AWS Well-Architected Framework Best Practices.
Thank you for reading and/or following along! Please stay tuned and check out the rest of my articles.
