AWS Well-Architected Framework - Summary Guide

 

Pillar	Short Definition
Operational Excellence	Efficiently run and monitor systems, and continuously improve operations and processes.
Security	Protect data, systems, and assets using access control, encryption, and monitoring.
Reliability	Design systems to recover from failures and dynamically meet demand.
Performance Efficiency	Use IT and cloud resources effectively as requirements evolve.
Cost Optimization	Eliminate waste by choosing the right resources and scaling with demand.
Sustainability	Reduce environmental impact by using energy-efficient and managed services.

Real-World Example: E-Commerce Microservices on AWS

Architecture:

• Frontend on CloudFront + S3

• API Layer using Amazon API Gateway + Lambda

• Backend DB on Amazon Aurora Multi-AZ

• Authentication via Cognito

• Logging and monitoring with CloudWatch, X-Ray

Well-Architected Mapping:

• Operational Excellence: CI/CD pipelines using CodePipeline and CloudFormation

• Security: WAF, IAM roles, Cognito, KMS encryption

• Reliability: Multi-AZ DB, Route 53 failover

• Performance: Auto-scaling Lambdas, global CloudFront caching

• Cost Optimization: Spot usage for ECS batch jobs

• Sustainability: No servers to manage, everything on managed services

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📘 Summary

Pillar	Best Tool Examples
Operational Excellence	CloudWatch, Systems Manager
Security	IAM, KMS, GuardDuty
Reliability	Route 53, Auto Scaling, Backup
Performance	CloudFront, Lambda, Graviton
Cost Optimization	Spot Instances, Cost Explorer
Sustainability	Serverless, Carbon Footprint Tool

Operational Excellence

Focus: Operations, monitoring, incident response, continuous improvement.

Key Practices:

- Use Infrastructure as Code (IaC) with AWS CDK/CloudFormation

- Monitor with CloudWatch and automate with Systems Manager

- Define runbooks/playbooks for incident handling

Example: Lambda-based web app with CloudWatch alerts, SNS notifications, and Systems Manager

automation.

Security

Focus: Protecting data, access control, monitoring.

Key Practices:

- Implement IAM least privilege, MFA, encryption (KMS)

- Monitor with CloudTrail and GuardDuty

Example: Financial app with IAM roles, KMS encryption, GuardDuty anomaly detection, CloudTrail logging.

Reliability

Focus: Fault tolerance, recovery, availability.

Key Practices:

- Multi-AZ deployments

- Auto Scaling

- DNS failover (Route 53)

Example: Content platform with ALB, Auto Scaling, Route 53 regional failover, and AWS Backup scheduling.

AWS Well-Architected Framework - Summary Guide

Performance Efficiency

Focus: Resource efficiency, adapting to demand.

Key Practices:

- Choose right compute types (Lambda, Fargate)

- Caching (CloudFront)

Example: E-commerce app with CloudFront caching, Global Accelerator, Lambda, and Aurora Serverless.

Cost Optimization

Focus: Avoiding waste and optimizing spend.

Key Practices:

- Use Spot Instances, Savings Plans, and budgets

- Right-size resources with Compute Optimizer

Example: SaaS using Spot EC2 for dev, Cost Explorer for analysis, and instance scheduling via Lambda.

Sustainability

Focus: Reduce energy and environmental impact.

Key Practices:

- Use serverless and managed services

- Track carbon metrics

Example: Analytics firm migrates to EMR + S3 from on-prem Hadoop, using carbon tracking tools.