well-architectured-framework.md

Well Architectured Framework

General Guiding Principles

• Stop guessing capacity needs
• Test systems at production scale
• Automate to make architectural experimentation easier
• Allow for evolutionary architectures, design based on changing requirements
• Drive architecture using data
• Improve through game days, simulate applications for flash sale days

5 pillars

1. Operational Excellence
2. Security
3. Reliability
4. Performance Efficiency
5. Cost Optimization

• They are not something to balance, or trade-offs, they are synergy!

AWS Well-Architected Tool

• It is an AWS console service
• We can define workload to track our architecture's performance over time
• We can start a review based on the 5 pillars by answering a bunch of questions
• At the end we can generate a report

1st pillar: Operational Excellence

• Includes the ability to run and monitor systems to deliver business value and to continually improve supporting processes and procedures
• Design principles:
  • Perform operations as code - infrastructure as code
  • Annotate documentation - automate creation of annotated documentation after every build
  • Make frequent, small, reversible changes
  • Refine operations procedure frequently and ensure team members are familiar with it
  • Anticipate failure and learn from operational failure
• In terms of AWS services:
  • Prepare:
    • CloudFormation
    • AWS Config
  • Operate:
    • CloudFormation
    • Config
    • CloudTrail
    • CloudWatch
    • XRay
  • Evolve:
    • CloudFormation
    • CodeBuild
    • CodeDeploy
    • CodePipeline

2nd pillar: Security

• Includes the ability to protect information, systems and assets while delivering business value through risk assessments and mitigation strategies
• Design principles:
  • Implement a string identity foundation
  • Enable traceability
  • Apply security at all layers
  • Automate security best practices
  • Protect data in transit and at rest
  • Keep people away from data
  • Prepare for security events
• In terms of AWS services:
  • Identity and access management:
    • IAM
    • AWS-STS
    • MFA token
    • AWS Organizations
  • Detective controls:
    • AWS Config
    • CloudTrail
    • CloudWatch
  • Infrastructure protection:
    • CloudFront
    • VPC
    • AWS Shield
    • AWS WAF
    • Amazon Inspector
  • Data protection:
    • KMS
  • Incident response:
    • IAM
    • AWS CloudFormation
    • CloudWatch Events

3rd pillar: Reliability

• Ability of a system to recover from infrastructure or service disruptions, dynamically acquire computing resources to meet demand and mitigate disruptions such as misconfigurations or transient network issues
• Design principles:
  • Test recovery procedures
  • Automate recover from failure
  • Scale horizontally to increase aggregate system availability
  • Stop guessing capacity, use auto-scaling
  • Manage change in automation
• In terms of AWS services:
  • Foundations:
    • IAM
    • VPC
    • Service Limits
    • AWS Trusted Advisor
  • Change management:
    • Auto Scaling
    • CloudWatch
    • CloudTrail
    • Config
  • Failure Management:
    • Backups
    • CloudFormation
    • S3, Glacier
    • Route53

4th pillar: Performance Efficiency

• Includes the ability to use computing resources efficiently to meet system requirements and to maintain that efficiency as demand changes and technologies evolve
• Design principles:
  • Democratize advanced technologies
  • Go global in minutes
  • Use serverless architectures
  • Experiment more often
  • Mechanical sympathy, be aware of all AWS services
• In terms of AWS services:
  • Selection:
    • AWS Auto Scaling
    • AWS Lambda
    • EBS
    • S3
    • RDS
  • Review:
    • CloudFormation
    • AWS News Blog
  • Monitoring:
    • CloudWatch
    • AWS Lambda
  • Tradeoffs:
    • ElastiCache
    • Snowball
    • CloudFront

5th pillar: Cost Optimization

• Includes the ability to run systems to deliver business value at the lowest price point
• Design principles:
  • Adopt a consumption mode, pay only for what you use
  • Measure overall efficiency
  • Stop spending money on data center operations
  • Analyze and attribute expenditure
  • Use managed and application level services to reduce cost of ownership
• In terms of AWS services:
  • Expenditure awareness:
    • AWS Budgets
    • AWS Cost and Usage Report
    • AWS Cost Explorer
    • Reserved Instance Reporting
  • Cost-effective resources:
    • Spot instances
    • Reserved Instances
    • S3 Glacier
  • Matching supply and demand:
    • Auto Scaling
    • AWS Lambda
  • Optimize over time:
    • AWS Trusted Advisor
    • AWS Cost and Usage Report
    • AWS News Blog