What is the AWS Well-Architected Framework?

What is the AWS Well-Architected Framework?

AWS Solutions Architects took their many years’ experience building solutions, and designing and reviewing thousands of customers’ architectures on AWS, and identified a set of best practices for architecting systems in the cloud. The result is the AWS Well-Architected Framework.

Based on 5 pillars – Operational Excellence, Security, Reliability, Performance Efficiency, and Cost Optimization – the Framework allows us to design and operate reliable, secure and cost-effective systems in the cloud, while sticking to best-practice architectural methodology.

The development of the AWS Well-Architected Tool has enabled regular review of workloads, identifying high risk issues and recording your improvements. Conducting a Well-Architected Review (WAR) allows a conversational approach rather than an audit process, and serves to establish well-architected systems that greatly increase the likelihood of business success.

The review documents a set of foundational questions that allow you to understand if a specific architecture aligns well with cloud best practices. The framework provides a consistent approach to evaluating systems against the qualities you expect from modern cloud-based systems, and the remediation that would be required to achieve those qualities. As AWS continues to evolve, the definition of well-architected will continue to be refined.

We begin all of our development projects with a Well-Architected Review to give clients full visibility of their workload. The precise and comprehensive nature of the Framework provides clients with essential insights that enable informed decisions that add business value.

We have years of experience architecting solutions across a wide range of business verticals and use cases, with several of our case studies being used by AWS.