AWS Well-Architected Tool

AWS Well-Architected Tool Cheat Sheet

The AWS Well-Architected Tool is a service that helps you review your workloads and compares them to the latest AWS architectural best practices. The tool provides recommendations for making your workloads more reliable, secure, efficient, and cost-effective.

Key Components

• Workload is a term used to describe a collection of components that collectively contribute to business value. This could range from marketing websites, e-commerce platforms, and backend for mobile applications to analytic platforms. The complexity of a workload can vary – it could be as simple as a static website or as complex as a microservices architecture with multiple data stores and components.

• Milestones are significant points in your architecture’s evolution throughout the product lifecycle, including the design, testing, launch, and production phases.

• Lenses are a mechanism that allows you to consistently evaluate your architectures against best practices and pinpoint areas that need improvement. AWS provides several lenses, but you also have the flexibility to create your own lenses or use lenses shared with you by others.

• High Risk Issues (HRIs) refer to architectural and operational decisions that could potentially have a significant negative impact on a business. These could affect various aspects of an organization, including its operations, assets, and individuals.

• Medium Risk Issues (MRIs), on the other hand, are architectural and operational decisions that could have a negative impact on a business, but typically to a lesser extent than HRIs.

Using the Tool

To use the AWS Well-Architected Tool, you start by defining your workload. You then review your workload by answering a series of questions based on the five pillars of the AWS Well-Architected Framework. After the review, the tool provides you with a report that includes a list of high-risk issues and an improvement plan.

Best Practices 

The AWS Well-Architected Tool provides a set of best practices for each pillar of the AWS Well-Architected Framework. Here are some of the key best practices:

1. Workload Definition: Define your workload. This includes a set of applications that collectively deliver business value.

2. Review Process: Evaluate your workload using the tool. During a review, you answer a set of questions about your workload, and the tool provides you with a plan for architectural improvements.

3. Milestone Tracking: Save point-in-time milestones to track your architectural improvements over time.

4. Architectural Guidance: The tool provides you with a consistent approach for evaluating your architectures and implementing scalable designs.

5. In-Workflow Best Practices: Extend the AWS Well-Architected Tool for your architecture governance processes, applications, and workflows through robust APIs.

6. Measure Improvements: Implement improvements and track changes to measure progress.

7. Regular Evaluations: The tool provides a mechanism for regularly evaluating workloads, identifying high-risk issues, and recording improvements.

Benefits

• Architectural guidance: The tool provides you with a consistent approach for evaluating your architectures and implementing scalable designs.
• In-Workflow Best Practices: You can extend the AWS Well-Architected Tool for your architecture governance processes, applications, and workflows through robust APIs.
• Measure Improvements: You can save point-in-time milestones, implement improvements, and track changes to measure progress.

AWS Well-Architected Tool Cheat Sheet Reference:

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/wellarchitected/