Amazon Web Services (AWS) has exploded, as evident through enterprises that have migrated their legacy IT systems and workloads to AWS cloud. AWS is thriving as they meet the high-demand to provide cloud-based storage and services for companies enabling them to expand and boost their capabilities. Gartner confirms in their June 2017 report, Magic Quadrant for Cloud Infrastructure as a Service, Worldwide that AWS is the most mature, enterprise-ready provider, with the deepest capabilities for governing a large number of users and resources.
On your journey to the cloud, utilizing AWS can involve various resources and dozens of services depending on your objectives. Once your company has migrated or has architected solutions on AWS, your infrastructure can get more complicated leading you to overlook innovative AWS solutions or cost savings.
To address this, AWS established (in October 2015 and later updated in November 2016) the Well-Architected Framework. This framework, comprised of a set of questions and design principles across five pillars helps customers understand the pros and cons of decisions made while building their systems on AWS.
1Strategy is one of approximately ten AWS Partners globally who are qualified to conduct an AWS Well-Architected Review. Through the Well-Architected Reviews, 1Strategy has helped customers save up to 60% on their monthly AWS bill, preemptively mitigate major security risks, and establish best practices for future migrations to AWS.
1Strategy’s goal is to help companies build a strong operational foundation allowing them to enhance their AWS architecture to be more cost-effective, secure, and reliable. A Well-Architected Framework review is either conducted by AWS or by an AWS Consulting Partner. As an AWS Advanced Consulting Partner, 1Strategy teams with AWS and conducts a Well-Architected Framework review. This review evaluates a company’s architecture, provides guidance and best practices, and delivers a detailed outline of analysis and recommendations, including remediation steps or actions.
The five pillars of the AWS Well Architected Framework include:
Security: Focuses on protecting information & systems. Key topics: confidentiality and integrity of data, identifying and managing who can do what with privilege management, protecting systems, and establishing controls to detect security events.
Reliability: The ability to prevent, and to quickly recover from failures to meet business and customer demand. Key topics: foundational elements around setup, cross project requirements, recovery planning, and how we handle change.
Performance Efficiency: Focuses on using IT and computing resources efficiently. Key topics: selecting the right resource types and sizes based on workload requirements, monitoring performance, and making informed decisions to maintain efficiency as business needs evolve.
Cost Optimization: The ability to avoid un-needed costs. Key topics: understanding and controlling where money is being spent, selecting the most appropriate and right number of resource types, analyzing spend over time, and scaling to meet business needs without overspending.
Operation Excellence: Focuses on running and monitoring systems to deliver business value, and continually improving processes and procedures. Key topics: managing and automating changes, responding to events, and defining standards to successfully manage daily operations.
The strength of a building lies in its foundation. The same is for architecting your technology solutions. The Well-Architected Framework is a valuable resource and by incorporating these five pillars into your architecture, you will be able to build up a strong operational foundation of your environment allowing you to optimize AWS solutions while receiving cost savings benefits.
If your business needs a Well-Architected Review or if you have questions, contact us at info@1Strategy.com.
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