F

Well-Architected
Quick Reference

The 6 pillars of the AWS Well-Architected Framework — what they mean and where to start.

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The AWS Well-Architected Framework is how AWS recommends you build cloud infrastructure. It has 6 pillars, each covering a critical area. This reference gives you the overview — our Architecture Review gives you the full assessment against your actual environment.
⚙️
Operational Excellence
Run and monitor systems to deliver business value and continually improve.
Use Infrastructure as Code for all deployments
Make frequent, small, reversible changes
+ 3 more practices covered in a full review
🛡️
Security
Protect information, systems, and assets through risk assessment and mitigation.
Apply least-privilege access with IAM policies
Encrypt data at rest and in transit
+ 3 more practices covered in a full review
🔄
Reliability
Ensure workloads perform their intended function correctly and consistently.
Design for multi-AZ availability
Implement auto-scaling for variable workloads
+ 3 more practices covered in a full review
Performance Efficiency
Use computing resources efficiently and maintain efficiency as demand changes.
Right-size instances based on actual usage metrics
Use caching to reduce latency and backend load
+ 3 more practices covered in a full review
💰
Cost Optimization
Avoid unnecessary costs and understand where money is being spent.
Use Savings Plans or Reserved Instances for steady-state
Delete unused resources and set budget alerts
+ 3 more practices covered in a full review
🌱
Sustainability
Minimize environmental impact of running cloud workloads.
Right-size resources to avoid waste
Use Graviton processors for better performance per watt
+ 3 more practices covered in a full review

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