Leveraging The New AWS Well-Architected Tool

Review and refinement are integral components of cloud computing best practices. In order to ensure a reliable and efficient cloud environment, regular reviews need to be performed at certain intervals. The goal is simple: making workloads more robust and protected while maintaining cost efficiency.

We have covered the AWS Well-Architected Framework—a complete framework for building solutions for a wide range of industries—extensively in the past. ICYMI, don’t forget to check out our blog series on the Five Pillars that help create secure and reliable cloud architecture which is optimized for operational excellence, performance efficiency, and cost. To make following these best practices easier, AWS has recently released the AWS Well-Architected Tool, making assessing your cloud infrastructure that much easier for administrators.

Going Beyond Being An Audit Tool

Don’t be deceived, the AWS Well-Architected Tool is not an audit tool. Instead, it goes well beyond that role and offers a conversational process of doing a complete review of your workloads while helping you maximize the comprehensive services available on the platform.

The AWS Well-Architected Tool can be accessed from the AWS Management Console. You have the option to define workloads to get started. Begin by entering details about the industry you are in, the regions you are operating in, choosing between production and development workload, and adding details about your AWS account.

Once a workload is defined, you can start with the review process. The system will take you through each pillar in the AWS Well-Architected Framework, answering every question and providing the tool with more details about your cloud environment and how it is set up.

After completing the review, the AWS Well-Architected Tool performs a thorough self-analysis and provides you with an improvement plan for the AWS workload. The improvement plan can be downloaded as a PDF document too, complete with additional details for manual review.

The tool also provides detailed architectural guidance in the form of recommendations and step-by-step guides on how to improve your workloads. The report generated at the end of this process simplifies the whole process of creating a cloud environment that is secure, fast, and reliable.

Added Benefits

The AWS Well-Architected Tool is a tool that can be leveraged for different purposes. Following the Well-Architected Framework involves optimizing all five pillars, which means operational excellence is only the beginning.

The AWS Well-Architected Tool is also capable of providing security strategies and recommendations. It helps you protect information and systems by performing a thorough risk assessment and adds strategies to mitigate security risks in its recommendations.

Reliability can also be greatly improved. The tool takes into account factors such as the regions you want to serve and the way your cloud architecture is laid out when performing analysis on the workload. It can recommend better structuring of the infrastructure as a whole.

Efficiency is another department where the AWS Well-Architected Tool excels. It is easy to create an infrastructure that far exceeds the requirements of your business and using the tool to spot that excess capacity will lead to better efficiency of the cloud environment.

We’re not just talking about cloud efficiency either. The AWS Well-Architected Tool also spots performance efficiency issues and current bottlenecks in the infrastructure. It recommends better load balancing and changes to the structure of your cloud environment for seamless use of computing resources.

The tool goes another step further by also offering ways to balance these pillars to create a cloud environment that suits the specific needs of your business perfectly. Rather than make sacrifices when setting up a cloud infrastructure by balancing cost over performance, the tool helps you perfectly straddle both.

It is not always possible to create a capable yet efficient and cost-effective cloud, especially when there are specific needs involved. By leveraging the AWS Well-Architected Tool, you can find that sweet spot and have an environment that matches your workloads perfectly.

Achieving Cloud Milestones

The cloud environment offered by AWS is designed to be fluid and flexible from the ground up. With the environment being dynamically configured—resources can be added or removed in real-time—having the ability to perform a continuous review is a huge plus. This is where the biggest advantage of using AWS Well-Architected Tool lies.

You can also use AWS Well-Architected Tool in combination with other tools. For example, you can use the Well-Architected Tool with third-party security audit tools to make the process of improving security much more manageable. The same approach can be used for real-time validation of workloads and resource usage.

Last but certainly not least, the AWS Well-Architected Tool is a great resource for continuous learning. It doesn’t just focus on providing ways to improve your cloud architecture, but it provides explanations on why those improvements are needed. Leverage the tool to set cloud milestones which will then support you by guiding you through the process of achieving those self-same milestones.

Server administrators and consultants welcomed the release of AWS Well-Architected Tool with excitement. The tool makes the entire AWS ecosystem more accessible to businesses of different scales, including those without a dedicated team of cloud administrators working around the clock. Amazon is clearly taking steps to make AWS more accessible. The new AWS Well-Architected Tool is a tool that can be leveraged by both well-experienced developers and those who are brand new to building and maintaining cloud infrastructure.

This post was originally published here.