The Worth of Well-Architected Review for companies

AWS Well-Architected provides a consistent way to evaluate workloads and implement designs that will scale over time. Skillwell, as an AWS partner, can help your organization measure the state of workloads, recommend improvements, and implement AWS best practices. In this blog, Jussi Immonen, an AWS certified Expert, explains why the Well-Architected review is needed and why it should be done annually.

What is a Well-Architected Review

AWS Well-Architected is a review of AWS Cloud Infrastructure to identify areas of improvement. This program was created to determine if a specific architecture aligns well with cloud best practices, and secure, and how cloud resources are being used optimally.

What is the value of an AWS Well-Architected Review and how it can help you achieve your business goals?

Over the years of working with AWS as an AWS Advanced Consulting Partner & AWS Service Delivery Partner, we have learned that Well-Architected Review is essential for businesses using AWS. That’s why we’ve become a certified Well-Architected Review Partner for AWS users.

The main goal of a cloud architecture analysis is to identify any critical issues that may need to be addressed or areas that can be improved. As a result of the review, you will be able to align your technology and business goals, as well as get a set of actions that should improve your workload performance.

These recommendations, put into action, are the main value of conducting an AWS Well-Architected Review, as they can benefit your business in the following ways, for example:

• Improved layered security with multiple security controls.
• Improving the effectiveness of response systems after identifying potential sources of failure.
• Assessing the business outcome of a workload and the costs associated with it
• Optimize workloads and implement the efficient design to ensure high utilization and maximum energy efficiency of the underlying equipment.

The 6 Pillars of an AWS-Well Architected Review.

To create an efficient and stable system, you need to follow 6 main pillars. The AWS-Well Architected Review is based on these pillars:

• Operational Excellence Pillar — The operational excellence pillar focuses on running and monitoring systems, and continually improving processes and procedures.
• Security Pillar — The security pillar focuses on protecting information and systems.
• Reliability Pillar — The reliability pillar focuses on workloads performing their intended functions and how to recover quickly from failure to meet demands.
• Performance Efficiency Pillar — The performance efficiency pillar focuses on the structured and streamlined allocation of IT and computing resources.
• Cost Optimization Pillar — The cost optimization pillar focuses on avoiding unnecessary costs.
• Sustainability Pillar — The sustainability pillar focuses on minimizing the environmental impacts of running cloud workloads.

What Should You Do Next?

The AWS Well-Architected Framework is a combination of several areas that enable AWS customers and users to build solid and scalable architectures and solutions.

If you realize that you haven’t done a Well-Architected Review in the last 12–18 months, or have never done one at all, then I recommend you contact AWS Certified Experts and schedule your workload review.

As a new solution, we offer one pillar Well-Architected Review of your choice for free to your company or organization. After evaluating one pillar, you can continue to a comprehensive Well-Architected Review, where we go through your AWS workload in its entirety.