HOW AWS WELL-ARCHITECTED FRAMEWORK BUILDS BETTER CLOUD SYSTEM
Most of the applications are now hosted and developed on cloud. The cloud interface is very easy to use and very cost efficient. But more complicated the working of an application the more complex architecture is required to keep the application secure, efficient, and running perfectly. For any medium sized company starting off on a cloud service provider it is important to plan the architecture of the application in advance for smooth development. In this article I try to explain how AWS’s well architecture service can be used by anybody to create an architecture perfectly suited for their application.
AWS Well-Architected Tool
According to Amazon, “AWS Well-Architected helps cloud architects build secure, high-performing, resilient, and efficient infrastructure for their applications and workloads. “
Using this tool is very important in any planning of architecture for the cloud. It is free of cost and it guides for a better and more efficient architecture for your application. The Well-Architected tool has 5 pillars each of which we will discuss further in detail.
Pillars of Well-Architected Tool
The tool has divided the work in different categories to make it more simple to understand this service. The following pillars are used to better understand the architecture of cloud:
- Operational Excellence Pillar
Every process and procedure followed is very important from a business point of view. It is important that these processes be maintained and continuously checked for inefficiencies. It is also good when procedures are periodically changed to better the system and efficiency of the architecture. This pillar in particular tries to maintain running and monitoring systems. AWS provides PDF for every little detail in the well-architectured framework to gain even more knowledge in the respective fields.
- Security pillar
Every cloud architecture needs excellent security. It should be a very high priority to embed better security into the architecture for the sake of the customers sensitive data. Information security teaches the main topics of security triad. Which includes:
confidentiality — No unauthorized person should be able to access any confidential data.
Integrity — No modification should be made to the data by unauthorized personnel.
Availability — Data should be available to authorized personnel only.
Each of these principles is important in cloud security through this pillar of the tool. It is also important to manage privileges in the cloud architecture and assign roles to all the developers so none of the security principles are broken. Establishing IDS and IPS for precautions and actions during the attack phase are also key components of this pillar.
- Reliability pillar
A cloud application has a lot of workload services working together to keep the application running. The reliability pillar ensures that all the services are running their functions correctly, continuously and efficiently. An ideal architecture would quickly recover from any failures in the system and maintain the workload of the application.
This pillar includes how to handle change in the core functions of the application. How to distribute the system design. One of the most important guidance key is also disaster recovery planning and actions which are decided in this part of the process.
- Performance efficiency pillar
Various services need different amounts of computational resources. Each service needs to be kept in check for any irregularities and latencies. This pillar ensures that the resources given to a particular service are efficiently used.
Each service has a lot of choices to select from. All the plans are laid according to the budget of the application. This pillar helps in understanding what plans to activate for a smooth experience. It is also important to ensure the measures necessary for expansion of application.
- Cost optimization pillar
The plans selected may not be the most efficient or may not be cut off for the application you are building. This pillar focuses on optimizing the resources needed so that the cost is efficient. Selection of the most suitable and accurate number of types of resources. It is also necessary to scale the business according to the demand of the application, in this process the tool guides for better understanding of the above.
Using AWS Well-Architected Tool
As shown in the above diagram, the main page of the tool has all the guides necessary for starting off with the tool. Although the basics will be covered in this article.
The Well-Architected Framework splits the application in workloads. Each workload can be a part or full resources of the services running. A workload can be a website, a backend, etc.
- In the tool you first define the workload.
- During the review, the tool will ask you certain questions based on the pillars.
- Each question will be used to make a review better for optimization purposes.
- After the review of the workload the tool will identify issues with your architecture and workload prioritized by the level of risk.
- The tool will provide a plan to improve the architecture and also make some more suggestions.
- Suggestions for milestones to keep track of the progress and improve on them is also necessary.
- The improvement plan is divided for all the different pillars. Clicking on the respective pillar will help you understand the risks in your workload. To understand how to implement the improvements, you can click on the services provided by the tool.
- The tool will also help to automatically improve the system if needed by the developer. Click improve and then save the new improved configuration of the architecture.
- It is also suggested that you save the workload milestone for every milestone. This will help to return the configuration back to the old one whenever necessary.
Benefits of Well-Architecture Tool
This tool is very important in optimizing the architecture of the cloud application. This tool will allow you to gain better understanding of the AWS services, constantly govern all the resources and continuously scale the performance for the betterment of the application.
