Your AWS environment is constantly changing. Engineers constantly experiment with new AWS services, spin up or down new instances and make changes in security groups. So how are you going to make sure your cloud doesn’t turn into absolute mayhem?
Well, for starters, it’s good practice to carry out a Well-Architected Review every 12 to 24 months. The review will help you evaluate AWS architectures that will help you find and correct any possible problems in your environment. This process is based on the AWS Well-Architected Framework, a detailed collection of AWS Best Practices (stated over a couple hundred pages of AWS Whitepapers – don’t panic, we’ve broken it down just for you).
To help you approach every aspect of your environment, AWS has created a Framework that consists of the following pillars along with design principles derived from each one:
Pillar 1 – Operational Excellence
This is the capacity to manage systems and track operations to generate business value.
Design principles:
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- Conduct operations as code
- Compile documentation
- Create minor adjustments that are reversible
- Refine operations regularly
- Allow failure
- Track and learn from results including failures
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Pillar 2 – Security
This is the ability to secure assets, information and systems through mitigation strategies and risk assessments.
Design principles:
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- Establish a strong identity foundation and determine access rules
- Create traceability
- Automate security
- Protect in transit and at rest data
- Prepare for security events
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Pillar 3 – Reliability
This involves practices that make sure the system is able to recover from disruptions in service or infrastructure.
Design principles:
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- Test your recovery strategies
- Increase integrated system availability
- Measure the cost of designing an application with high availability levels
- Don’t just guess capacity
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Pillar 4 – Performance Efficiency
This foundation relies on using computing resources to meet market requirements. Additionally, it establishes practices on how to maintain that efficiency as your company expands, demands grow and technologies advance.
Design principles:
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- Go global
- Experiment often
- Use serverless architectures
- Have performance metrics in place
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Pillar 5 – Cost Optimization
This is the ability to run systems to deliver business value at the lowest price point – removing any and all activities that add extra costs. For every company, cost optimization will make a big difference to the bottom line.
Design principles:
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- Figure out a consumption model
- Measure overall cost efficiency
- Don’t lose money and resources on data center operations
- Review budgets and allocate to profitable business units
- Reduce the cost of ownership
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We know creating a production-ready infrastructure is an overwhelming amount of work. You can trust us to work with you to jointly achieve this mission.
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