Tag Archives: AWS Well-Architected Lenses

Top Architecture Blog Posts of 2024

Post Syndicated from Andrea Courtright original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/architecture/top-architecture-blog-posts-of-2024/

Well, it’s been another historic year! We’ve watched in awe as the use of real-world generative AI has changed the tech landscape, and while we at the Architecture Blog happily participated, we also made every effort to stay true to our channel’s original scope, and your readership this last year has proven that decision was the right one.

AI/ML carries itself in the top posts this year, but we’re also happy to see that foundational topics like resiliency and cost optimization are still of great interest to our audience.

(By the way, if you were hoping for more AI/ML content, head on over to our sister channel, the AWS Machine Learning Blog!).

Without further ado, here are our top posts from 2024!

#10 Deploy Stable Diffusion ComfyUI on AWS elastically and efficiently

This post helps you get started using ComfyUI, and was so successful that we followed it up later in the year with How to build custom nodes workflow with ComfyUI on EKS!

Architecture for deploying stable diffusion on ComfyUI

Figure 1. Architecture for deploying stable diffusion on ComfyUI

#9 Let’s Architect! Designing Well-Architected systems

In keeping with Let’s Architect! series, we have our first of three favorites for the year. This set of resources helps you apply Well-Architected standards in practice.

Let's Architect

Figure 2. Let’s Architect

#8 Let’s Architect! Learn About Machine Learning on AWS

As I said, Let’s Architect! has a winning series, and they’ve got a finger on the pulse of the tech world. This post about machine learning showcases some of the most exciting things happening at AWS.

Let's Architect

Figure 3. Let’s Architect

If you’re more interested in generative AI, you can also take a look at another post from 2024: Let’s Architect! GenAI

#7 Creating an organizational multi-Region failover strategy

Preparedness is another common theme in this year’s favorites. Michael, John, and Saurabh are well-versed in multi-Region architecture, and they’re here to share some strategies to contain failure impact.

When the application experiences an impairment using S3 resources in the primary Region, it fails over to use an S3 bucket in the secondary Region.

Figure 4. When the application experiences an impairment using S3 resources in the primary Region, it fails over to use an S3 bucket in the secondary Region.

#6 Building a three-tier architecture on a budget

Let’s talk cost optimization. This post about a three-tier architecture that relies on the AWS Free Tier is a must-read for anyone looking for tips to help them avoid unnecessary costs (and that’s everyone).

Example of a three-tier architecture on AWS

Figure 5. Example of a three-tier architecture on AWS

#5 Announcing updates to the AWS Well-Architected Framework guidance

As usual, Haleh & team are pros at making sure the Well-Architected Framework is current and relevant. Take a look at the enhanced and expanded guidance in all six pillars.

Well-Architected logo

Figure 6. Well-Architected logo

#4 Let’s Architect! Serverless developer experience in AWS

One more winning post from Luca, Federica, Vittorio, and Zamira! This collection of developer resources includes new ideas in AWS Lambda, Amazon Q Developer, and Amazon DynamoDB.

Let's Architect

Figure 7. Let’s Architect

#3 London Stock Exchange Group uses chaos engineering on AWS to improve resilience

This post from April 1 was not an April Fool’s joke! See how LSEG designed failure scenarios to test their resilience and observability.

Chaos engineering pattern for hybrid architecture (3-tier application)

Figure 8. Chaos engineering pattern for hybrid architecture (3-tier application)

#2 Achieving Frugal Architecture using the AWS Well-Architected Framework Guidance

Frugality AND Well-Architected? What a winning combo! This post, inspired by the 2023 re:Invent keynote, outlines the seven laws of Frugal Architecture.

Well-Architected logo

Figure 9. Well-Architected logo

#1 How an insurance company implements disaster recovery of 3-tier applications

And finally, our number one post of the year! Amit and Luiz showcase a customer solution with real-world applications that builds on the guidelines of other posts in this list! Well done!

The Pilot Light scenario for a 3-tier application that has application servers and a database deployed in two Regions

Figure 10. The Pilot Light scenario for a 3-tier application that has application servers and a database deployed in two Regions

Thank you!

As always, thanks to our contributors for their dedication and desire to share, and to you, our readers! We would be nothing with you. Literally.

For other top post lists, see our Top 10 and Top 5 posts from previous years.

Announcing updates to the AWS Well-Architected Framework guidance

Post Syndicated from Haleh Najafzadeh original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/architecture/announcing-updates-to-the-aws-well-architected-framework-guidance-3/

We are excited to announce the availability of enhanced and expanded guidance for the AWS Well-Architected Framework with the following six pillars: Operational Excellence, Security, Reliability, Performance Efficiency, Cost Optimization, and Sustainability

This release includes new best practices and improved prescriptive implementation guidance for the existing best practices. This includes enhanced recommendations and steps on reusable architecture patterns focused on specific business outcomes.

A brief history

The Well-Architected Framework is a collection of best practices that allow customers to evaluate and improve the design, implementation, and operations of their workloads in the cloud.

2024 AWS Well-Architected guidance timeline

Figure 1. 2024 AWS Well-Architected guidance timeline

In 2012, we published the first version of the Framework. In 2015, we released the AWS Well-Architected Framework whitepaper. We added the Operational Excellence pillar in 2016. We released the pillar-specific whitepapers and AWS Well-Architected Lenses in 2017. The following year, the AWS Well-Architected Tool was launched.

In 2020, we released the new version of the Well-Architected Framework guidance, more lenses, and an API integration with the AWS Well-Architected Tool. We added the sixth pillar, Sustainability in 2021. In 2022, dedicated pages were introduced for each consolidated best practices across all six pillars, with several best practices updated with improved prescriptive guidance. By December 2023, we improved more than 75% of the Framework’s best practices. As of November 2024, we’ve refreshed 100% of the Framework’s best practices at least once since October 2022.

What’s new

The Well-Architected Framework supports customers as they mature in their cloud journey by providing guidance to help achieve more operable, secure, sustainable, scalable, and resilient environment and workload solutions.

The content updates and prescriptive guidance improvements in this release provide more complete coverage across AWS, helping customers make informed decisions when developing implementation plans. We added or expanded on guidance for the following services in this update: Amazon API Gateway, Amazon CloudFront, Amazon CloudWatch, Amazon CodeGuru, Amazon Cognito, Amazon GuardDuty, Amazon Inspector, Amazon Macie, Amazon Q Business, Amazon Q Developers, Amazon Redshift, Amazon S3, AWS Certificate Manager, AWS CloudFormation, AWS CloudTrail, AWS CodeBuild, AWS CodeDeploy, AWS CodePipeline, AWS Config, AWS Control Tower, AWS Customer Carbon Footprint Tool, AWS Glue, AWS Health, AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM), AWS Key Management Service (KMS), AWS OpenSearch, AWS Organizations, AWS Resource Access Manager, AWS Secrets Manager, AWS Security Hub, AWS Step Functions, AWS Systems Manager, AWS Trusted Advisor, AWS Verified Access, and AWS WAF.

Pillar updates

Operational Excellence

In the Operational Excellence Pillar, we updated five best practices across four questions. This includes OPS02, OPS05, OPS09, and OPS10. The updates in this release include improved prescriptive guidance on multiple AWS services. OPS02-BP02 updates leverage Amazon Q Business for improving workforce collaboration and productivity. OPS05-BP08 updates demonstrate AWS Organizations and AWS Control Tower capabilities that enable updates to a multi-environment setup while meeting governance and policy requirements. OPS09-BP01 and OPS09-BP02 have updated guidance and resources for developing operational key performance indicators (KPIs). OPS10-BP02 has been updated with information on AWS Health, including its planned lifecycle events feature, for integrating into an incident management workflow.

Security

In the Security Pillar, we updated 43 best practices across nine questions. This includes SEC02, SEC03, SEC04, SEC06, SEC07, SEC08, SEC09, SEC10, and SEC11. All best practices in SEC03 (Permissions management) were revised, with updates to guidance on Attribute Based Access Control (ABAC), AWS IAM Access Analyzer, and emergency access processes. SEC02 (Identity management) also saw updates to all six of its best practices, including refinements to guidance on identity federation and secrets management. SEC07 through SEC11 received updates to guidance on data protection, incident response, and application security. Key updates include replacing the security information and event management SIEM solution on AWS OpenSearch recommendation with AWS CloudTrail Lake in SEC04 (Detection), expanded guidance on AWS S3 Object Lock and AWS S3 Glacier Vault Lock in SEC08 (Protecting data at rest), and the addition of recommendations for Mutual Transport Layer Security (mTLS) and private certificates in SEC09 (Protecting data in transit). Overall, these changes reflect AWS’s commitment to providing up-to-date, comprehensive security guidance in line with evolving best practices and new service capabilities.

Reliability

In the Reliability Pillar, we updated 14 best practices across nine questions. This includes REL01, REL02, REL04, REL06, REL07, REL08, REL10, REL12, and REL13. We expanded and clarified our guidance throughout the Pillar and added detailed implementation steps to each best practice that did not previously have them. We refreshed our multi-location deployment guidance by merging REL10-BP02 into REL10-BP01, while improving the prescriptive guidance of this best practice with a new title of Deploy the workload to multiple locations. We updated our idempotent operations guidance in REL04-BP04 to provide detailed technical guidance for builders who wish to provide idempotent APIs and updated the title to Make mutating operations idempotent. We merged functional testing guidance by migrating the content previously published under REL12-BP03 to REL08-BP02 (Integrate functional testing as part of your deployment) and expanded our guidance on testing in CI/CD pipelines. We refreshed REL07-BP01 to emphasize infrastructure as code (IaC) as a cornerstone of automated resource management and scaling. We improved our guidance in REL06-BP02 on how to use system and application logs to improve workload observability. We also refreshed our links to relevant resources including documents, videos, and presentations.

Performance Efficiency

In the Performance Efficiency Pillar, we updated the resources of PERF03-BP04 with the latest services.

Sustainability

In the Sustainability Pillar, we updated 10 best practices across six questions. This includes SUS01, SUS03, SUS04, SUS05, and SUS06. Best practices SUS01-BP01, SUS03-BP02, SUS03-BP05, SUS04-BP03, SUS04-BP05, SUS04-BP06, SUS04-BP07, SUS04-BP08, SUS05-BP04, and SUS06-BP02 now offer improved prescriptive guidance. Additionally, we added a new best practice, SUS06-BP01 Communicate and cascade your sustainability goals, which highlights the critical role of the central IT team in cascading sustainability goals and objectives across the broader organization. By strategically leveraging the cloud, implementing resource-efficient practices, and employing sustainability-focused tools and analytics, IT teams can play a pivotal role in driving meaningful reductions in the organization’s environmental impact.

Conclusion

This release includes updates and improvements to the Framework guidance totaling 78 best practices. As of this release, we’ve updated 100% of the existing Framework best practices at least once since October 2022. With this release, we have refreshed 100% of all the pillars of the Framework including the Reliability Pillar, with 14 of its best practice updated for the first time since major Framework improvements started in 2022.

Updates in this release will be incorporated into the AWS Well-Architected Tool in future releases, which you can use to review your workloads, address important design considerations, and help you follow the AWS Well-Architected Framework guidance.

The content will be available in 11 languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Indonesian, Brazilian Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese.

Ready to get started? Review the updated AWS Well-Architected Framework Pillar best practices and pillar-specific whitepapers.

Have questions about some of the new best practices or most recent updates? Join our growing community on AWS re:Post.

Introducing the Māori Data Lens for the Well-Architected Framework

Post Syndicated from Craig Hind original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/architecture/introducing-the-maori-data-lens-for-the-well-architected-framework/

In Aotearoa New Zealand, we have been listening and learning to better understand Māori aspirations when using cloud technology. We have been learning from Māori customers, partners, and advisors who have helped us on this journey. A common theme was how to safeguard Māori data in a digital world. Together with a group of Māori advisers, we are excited to introduce the first iteration of a Māori Data Lens for the AWS Well-Architected Framework. This lens is the first of its kind for AWS globally that focuses on indigenous data, specifically Māori data considerations.

An AWS Well-Architected Framework lens is designed to provide a technology, industry, or domain specific perspective aligned with the AWS Well-Architected Framework. The Māori Data Lens allows customers to apply important Māori data considerations when designing and operating reliable, secure, efficient, and cost-effective systems in the cloud. This lens is designed to be a living resource that can grow and adapt alongside the evolving questions and considerations Māori have about how to secure and protect their data as a taonga (treasure). We hope this lens will be valuable in empowering individuals and organisations to design, build, and operate applications and workloads in the AWS Cloud in ways that can align with Māori values and expectations across the six pillars of the Well-Architected Framework: Operational Excellence, Security, Reliability, Performance Efficiency, Cost Optimization, and Sustainability. These are not a rigid set of rules, but instead a set of guiding principles.

This lens is designed to complement invaluable te ao Māori knowledge and expertise. It’s important to consult, build trust, and reflect Māori voices in digital and technology choices. AWS customers can consult and partner with their Māori customers to build systems in a way that responsibly interact with their Māori data. This lens is a framework of practical questions and considerations. When combined with Māori knowledge and expertise, AWS customers can begin to use cloud technology in a way that empowers adherence to important cultural and ethical dimensions for safeguarding Māori data. As a starting point, we have sought to align the insights shared with us to our AWS best practices for architecting secure, reliable, and cost-effective applications in the AWS Cloud. Together, these guidelines support the durability and protection of Māori data.

At AWS, we have always believed it is essential that our customers have control over their data. We strive to give customers choice in how to secure and manage their data in the cloud in accordance with their needs. This has been true from the very beginning, when we were the only major cloud provider to allow our customers to control the geographic location of their data, never moving customer data without explicit instruction from the customer.

The launch of an AWS Local Zone in Auckland in 2023 and the coming AWS Region in Aotearoa gives all New Zealanders the choice to store their data onshore in Aotearoa New Zealand in the AWS Cloud without compromising on performance, innovation, scale, or security. We also know that some customers have needs that go beyond where their data is stored. We’re committed to expanding our understanding and our capability to help all customers meet their particular needs and best serve their own customers, to protect their data, and to meet legal and regulatory requirements.

Advice and feedback to date has been instrumental in helping to shape this resource, and we are deeply grateful for the ongoing partnership and insights. We recognise there are different perspectives, and that tikanga (protocol/practice) and experience among Māori on this topic continues to evolve. We welcome feedback on enhancing this resource to better serve the needs of our Māori customers and partners. To provide feedback, reach out to us using the feedback feature on the lens document or your local AWS account team.

We’d like to thank AWS partner HTK Group, as well as Māori technology and data experts who advised us on this work including Renata Hakiwai, Lee Timutimu, Nikora Ngaropo, Ngapera Riley, Wade Reweti, Atawhai Tibble and Eli Pohio. In their words:

“In this rapidly evolving digital landscape, the importance of understanding, organising, and harnessing data cannot be overstated. For our Māori communities, this holds even greater significance, as data can be a taonga or a treasure that represents the collective wisdom and knowledge passed down through generations.

Nā tō rourou, nā taku rourou, ka ora ai te iwi. With your food basket and my food basket, the people will thrive.

Mauri ora!”

Read the Māori Data Lens, or contact your AWS account team for more information.

Let’s Architect! Designing Well-Architected systems

Post Syndicated from Vittorio Denti original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/architecture/lets-architect-well-architected-systems/

The design of cloud workloads can be a complex task, where a perfect and universal solution doesn’t exist. We should balance all the different trade-offs and find an optimal solution based on our context. But how does it work in practice? Which guiding principles should we follow? Which are the most important areas we should focus on?

In this blog, we will try to answer some of these questions by sharing a set of resources related to the AWS Well-Architected Framework. The Framework shares a set of methods to help you understand the pros and cons of decisions you make while building cloud systems. By following this resource, you will learn architectural best practices for designing and operating reliable, secure, efficient, cost-effective, and sustainable systems in the cloud. The framework is constantly updated; it evolves as the technology landscape changes. Check out the latest updates from June 2024.

Build secure applications on AWS the Well-Architected way

The AWS Well-Architected Framework is constantly updated across all six pillars. The security pillar added a new best practice area: application security (AppSec). In this session, you can learn about the best practices highlighted in this area. Review four key domains: organization and culture, security of the pipeline, security in the pipeline, and dependency management. Each area provides a set of principles that you can implement and provides a complete view of how you design, develop, build, deploy, and operate secure workloads in the cloud.

Security should be part of the end-to-end development process, and implementing best practices both in the application code as well as in the underlying infrastructure components.

Figure 1. Security should be part of the end-to-end development process, and implementing best practices both in the application code as well as in the underlying infrastructure components.

Take me to this video

Announcing the AWS Well-Architected Mergers and Acquisitions Lens

How can we integrate different systems as a consequence of an acquisition? Mergers and acquisitions operations bring different people with different backgrounds together, with a need of driving systems convergence. Both organization and technical challenges can arise in this scenario. The Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) Lens is a collection of customer-proven design principles, best practices, and prescriptive guidance to help you integrate the IT systems of two or more organizations. This lens helps companies follow AWS prescribed best practices during technical integration, drive cost optimization, and expedite merger and acquisition value realization.

If the seller company runs on another cloud platform or on-premises, the acquirer should plan a cloud migration while guaranteeing continuity of service.

Figure 2. If the seller company runs on another cloud platform or on-premises, the acquirer should plan a cloud migration while guaranteeing continuity of service.

Take me to this blog

AWS Well-Architected Labs

One of the best ways to become familiar with new concepts and methodologies consist of doing hands-on work to absorb the techniques properly. For each Let’s Architect! blog, we tend to share at least one workshop associated with the topic. The AWS Well-Architected Framework covers six different pillars, so today we share the AWS Well-Architected Labs to cover each area of the framework. Feel free to jump across the different workshops and start building!

Sustainability is one of the pillars in the framework. Asynchronous and scheduled processing are key techniques for improving the sustainability and costs of cloud architectures.

Figure 3. Sustainability is one of the pillars in the framework. Asynchronous and scheduled processing are key techniques for improving the sustainability and costs of cloud architectures.

Take me to this workshop

Gain confidence in system correctness and resilience with formal methods

Distributed systems are difficult to design. It’s even more difficult to test them and prove they are working. Formal methods enable the early discovery of design bugs that can escape the guardrails of design reviews and automated testing only to get uncovered in production. This video shows how AWS uses P, an open source, state machine–based programming language for formal modelling and analysis of distributed systems.

You can learn from AWS engineers and architects how to use P for your own applications to find bugs early in the development process and increase developer velocity. This tool is used in AWS to reason out the correctness of cloud services (for example, Amazon Simple Storage Service and Amazon DynamoDB).

An example of a distributed system for processing transactions.

Figure 4. An example of a distributed system for processing transactions.

Take me to this video

See you next time!

Thanks for reading! Hopefully, you got interesting insights into the methodologies for designing Well-Architected systems. In the next blog, we will talk about multi-region architectures. We will understand when they are actually needed, and which design principles should be applied.

To revisit any of our previous posts or explore the entire series, visit the Let’s Architect! page.

Announcing updates to the AWS Well-Architected Framework guidance

Post Syndicated from Haleh Najafzadeh original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/architecture/announcing-updates-to-the-aws-well-architected-framework-guidance-2/

We are excited to announce the availability of an enhanced AWS Well-Architected Framework. In this update, you’ll find expanded guidance across all six pillars of the Framework: Operational Excellence, Security, Reliability, Performance Efficiency, Cost Optimization, and Sustainability.

In this release, we updated the implementation guidance for the new and existing best practices to be more prescriptive. This includes enhanced recommendations and steps on reusable architecture patterns focused on specific business outcomes.

A brief history

The Well-Architected Framework is a collection of best practices that allow customers to evaluate and improve the design, implementation, and operations of their workloads in the cloud.

2024 AWS Well-Architected guidance timeline

Figure 1. 2024 AWS Well-Architected guidance timeline

In 2012, we published the first version of the Framework. In 2015, we released the AWS Well-Architected Framework whitepaper. We added the Operational Excellence pillar in 2016. We released pillar-specific whitepapers and AWS Well-Architected Lenses in 2017. The following year, the AWS Well-Architected Tool was launched.

In 2020, we released the new version of the Well-Architected Framework guidance, more lenses, and an API integration with the AWS Well-Architected Tool. We added the sixth pillar, Sustainability, in 2021. In 2022, dedicated HTML pages were introduced for each consolidated best practice across all six pillars, with several best practices updated with improved prescriptive guidance. By December 2023, we improved more than 75% of the Framework’s best practices. As of June 2024, more than 95% of the Framework’s best practices have been refreshed at least once.

What’s new

The Well-Architected Framework supports customers as they mature in their cloud journey by providing guidance to help achieve accurate business, environment, and workload solutions. Well-Architected is committed to providing such information to customers by continually evolving and updating our guidance.

The content updates and prescriptive guidance improvements in this release provide more complete coverage across AWS, helping customers make informed decisions when developing implementation plans. We added or expanded on guidance for the following services in this update: Amazon Chime, Amazon CloudWatch, Amazon CodeGuru Security, Amazon CodeWhisperer, Amazon Devops Guru, Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS), Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS), Amazon ElastiCache, Amazon EventBridge, Amazon GuardDuty, Amazon Q, Amazon Route 53, Amazon Security Lake, Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS), AWS Billing and Cost Management, AWS Budgets, AWS Compute Optimizer, AWS Config, AWS Control Tower, AWS Cost Optimization Hub, AWS Customer Carbon Footprint Tool, AWS Data Exports, AWS Data Lifecycle Manager, AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery, AWS Fault Injection Service, AWS Global Accelerator, AWS Health, AWS Local Zones, AWS Organizations, AWS Outposts, AWS Resilience Hub, AWS Security Hub, AWS Systems Manager, AWS Trusted Advisor, and AWS Wickr.

Pillar updates

Operational Excellence

In the Operational Excellence Pillar, we updated 30 best practices across six questions. This includes OPS01, OPS02, OPS03, OPS07, OPS10, and OPS11. This update includes a refreshed structure and improved prescriptive guidance with updates on observability, generative AI capabilities, operating models, and the evolution of operational practices.

As part of this update, we consolidated four best practices into two (OPS01-BP07 merged into OPS01-BP06, OPS03-BP08 merged into OPS03-BP04) and changed the titles of seven best practices. Additionally, we added one new design principal to highlight the importance of aligning operating models to business outcomes and reordered design principles according to their priority from foundational to specialized. We updated three design principles and changed the title of one design principle. We’ve also updated the operating model guidance section of the pillar to be more prescriptive, showcasing pathways to evolving operating models.

The implementation guidance in best practices includes guidance on implementing generative AI capabilities with Amazon Q (Q Developer, Q Business, Q in QuickSight), the latest capabilities from Amazon CloudWatch Network Monitor, Amazon CloudWatch Internet Monitor, Amazon CloudWatch Logs, Amazon CloudWatch best practice alarms, cross-account observability, log-based alarms, log data protection, and AWS Health.

Security

In the Security Pillar, we updated 28 best practices across 10 questions. This includes SEC01, SEC02, SEC03, SEC04, SEC05, SEC06, SEC07, SEC08, SEC09, and SEC10. Best practice updates include removing duplication, clarifying desired outcomes, and providing robust prescriptive implementation guidance. As part of this update, we merged SEC01-BP05 into SEC01-BP04. We deleted two practices, SEC08-BP05 and SEC09-BP03, to remove the duplication of guidance covered across other existing practices. We updated the titles for 14 practices and changed the order of nine practices to improve clarity and flow.

Reliability

In the Reliability Pillar, we updated 11 best practices across six questions. This includes REL02, REL04, REL05, REL06, REL07, and REL08, with three best practices changing titles including REL04-BP01, REL05-BP06, and REL06-BP05. We improved resources available in best practices to include more recent blog posts, technical talks, and presentations. We also improved the prescriptive guidance by expanding on implementation steps. New services and service features added to the best practices guidance for AWS Resilience Hub, Amazon Route 53, Amazon Route53 Application Recovery Controller, AWS Fault Injection Service, and Amazon CloudWatch Synthetics.

Performance Efficiency

In the Performance Efficiency Pillar, we updated nine best practices across three questions. This includes PERF01, PERF03, and PERF05. We improved the prescriptive guidance on these best practices and added pillar-specific guidance on services including Amazon Devops Guru and Amazon ElastiCache Serverless. We’ve updated the resources section of all best practices with new and relevant resources.

Cost Optimization

In the Cost Optimization Pillar, we updated eight best practices across five questions. This includes COST01, COST02, COST03, COST05, and COST11. One new best practice added in COST06 highlights the benefits of using shared resources for organizational cost optimization. The improved best practices include guidance on AWS services and features including the AWS Cost Optimization Hub, AWS Billing and Cost Management features, and AWS Data Exports. These updates also cover sample key performance indicators (KPIs) for tracking optimization efforts, elaborate on the use of cost allocation tags, and discuss the split cost allocation for Amazon EKS and Amazon ECS to separate costs of containerized workloads. Additionally, the updates offer improved prescriptive and clear guidance on budgeting and forecasting. Finally, you’ll find guidance on using automations to reduce costs.

Sustainability

In the Sustainability Pillar, we updated 18 best practices across five questions. This includes SUS01, SUS02, SUS03, SUS04, SUS05, and SUS06. We improved the prescriptive guidance on these best practices, and added Pillar-specific guidance on services, including AWS Local Zones, AWS Outposts, Amazon Chime, AWS Wickr, Amazon CodeWhisperer, and AWS Customer Carbon Footprint Tool. We’ve expanded lists of resources across all best practices with new and relevant resources.

Conclusion

This release includes updates and improvements to the Framework guidance totaling 105 best practices. As of this release, we’ve updated 95% of the existing Framework best practices at least once since October 2022. With this release, we have refreshed 100% of the Operational Excellence, Security, Performance Efficiency, Cost Optimization, and Sustainability Pillars, as well as 79% of Reliability Pillar best practices. Best practice updates in this release across Operational Excellence, Security, and Reliability (a total of 66) are first-time updates since major Framework improvements started in 2022.

The content is available in 11 languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Indonesian, Brazilian Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese.

Updates in this release are also available in the AWS Well-Architected Tool, which you can use to review your workloads, address important design considerations, and help you follow the AWS Well-Architected Framework guidance.

Ready to get started? Review the updated AWS Well-Architected Framework Pillar best practices and pillar-specific whitepapers.

Have questions about some of the new best practices or most recent updates? Join our growing community on AWS re:Post.

Announcing updates to the AWS Well-Architected Framework guidance

Post Syndicated from Haleh Najafzadeh original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/architecture/announcing-updates-to-the-aws-well-architected-framework-guidance/

We are excited to announce the availability of improved AWS Well-Architected Framework guidance. In this update, we have made changes across all six pillars of the framework: Operational Excellence, Security, Reliability, Performance Efficiency, Cost Optimization, and Sustainability.

In this release, we have made the implementation guidance for the new and updated best practices more prescriptive, including enhanced recommendations and steps on reusable architecture patterns targeting specific business outcomes in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud.

A brief history

The Well-Architected Framework is a collection of best practices that allow customers to evaluate and improve the design, implementation, and operations of their workloads in the cloud.

In 2012, the first version of the framework was published, leading to the 2015 release of the guidance whitepaper. We added the Operational Excellence pillar in 2016. The pillar-specific whitepapers and AWS Well-Architected Lenses were released in 2017, and the following year, the AWS Well-Architected Tool was launched.

In 2020, Well-Architected Framework guidance had a new release, along with more lenses, as well as API integration with the AWS Well-Architected Tool. The sixth pillar, Sustainability, was added in 2021. In 2022, dedicated pages were introduced for each consolidated best practice across all six pillars, with several best practices updated with improved prescriptive guidance. By April 2023, more than 50% of the Framework’s best practices have had their prescriptive guidance improved.

A brief history of the AWS Well-Architected Framework

A brief history of the AWS Well-Architected Framework

What’s new

As customers mature in their journey, they are seeking guidance to achieve accurate solutions that is prescriptive to their business, environments, and workloads. AWS Well-Architected is committed to providing such information to customers by continually evolving and updating our guidance.

The content updates and improvements in this release focus on having more complete coverage across the AWS service portfolio, helping customers make more informed decisions when developing implementation plans. Services that were added or expanded in coverage include: AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery, AWS Trusted Advisor, AWS Resilience Hub, AWS Config, AWS Security Hub, Amazon GuardDuty, AWS Organizations, AWS Control Tower, AWS Compute Optimizer, AWS Budgets, Amazon CodeWhisperer, Amazon CodeGuru, Amazon EventBridge, Amazon CloudWatch, Amazon Simple Notification Service, AWS Systems Manager, Amazon ElastiCache, and AWS Global Accelerator.

Pillar updates

Operational Excellence

The Operational Excellence Pillar has received updates to two of the five Design Principles and has a new Design Principle on observability, which highlights its importance and relevance throughout the pillar content. All 10 best practices in OPS05 have been updated, and we have consolidated 28 best practices into 16, across four questions (OPS04, OPS06, OPS08, and OPS09), as well as improving prescriptive guidance.

Security

In the Security Pillar, the Incident response in SEC10 underwent an update to align with the AWS Security Incident Response Guide, while introducing one new best practice, and improving the prescriptive guidance for others. Two best practices in SEC08 and SEC09 have received improved prescriptive guidance on securing workloads at rest and in transit.

Reliability

The Reliability Pillar has received prescriptive guidance improvements to one best practice in REL06, and six best practices in REL11, focused on how to best monitor, failover, remediate, and limit impacts of failures. The update addresses a wide variety of managed services and designs, including multi-Region-based resilience.

Performance Efficiency

The Performance Efficiency Pillar has been completely restructured, consolidating and merging guidance to reduce the number of best practices by 10 and the number of questions by three. We have added best practices around efficient caching and optimizing hardware acceleration. We have also improved the implementation guidance in all 32 best practices of the newly restructured Pillar.

Cost Optimization

The Cost Optimization Pillar has 10 best practices with improved implementation prescriptive guidance.

Sustainability

The Sustainability Pillar has received updates to the risk levels of seven best practices.

Conclusion

This Well-Architected release includes updates and improvements to 90 best practices: Operational Excellence (26), Security (8), Reliability (7), Performance Efficiency (32), Cost Optimization (10), and Sustainability (7). These changes are in addition to the 151 improved best practices released in 2023 (127 in April 10, 2023; and 24 in July 13, 2023), resulting in more than 73% of the existing Framework best practices updated at least once in the last year.

As of this release, 100% of Performance Efficiency, Cost Optimization, and Sustainability; 63% of Operational Excellence; 60% of Security; and 50% of Reliability Pillar content have been refreshed at least once since October 2022.

The content is available in 11 languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Indonesian, Brazilian Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese.

Updates in this release are also available in the AWS Well-Architected Tool, which can be used to review your workloads, address important design considerations, and help ensure that you follow the best practices and guidance of the AWS Well-Architected Framework.

Ready to get started? Review the updated AWS Well-Architected Framework Pillar best practices, as well as pillar-specific whitepapers.

Have questions about some of the new best practices or most recent updates? Join our growing community on AWS re:Post.