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Immediate Impact: Quick Wins for Each Pillar of the AWS Well-Architected Framework (3/4)

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By Alejandro Lazaro Chueca 7 min read

This is my third article in a series about AWS Well-Architected.

In this article you will discover actionable Quick Wins for each AWS Well-Architected Pillar, helping you optimize cloud performance, security, and cost-efficiency.

More articles of the series:

  • 1/4 - Overview of the AWS Well-Architected Framework: Learn why the AWS Well-Architected Framework is essential for every cloud professional and how it can set your cloud architecture up for success.
  • 2/3 - Deep Dive: Six Pillars: Dive into the details of the Six Pillars, uncovering the best practices for building secure, resilient, and cost-efficient cloud systems.
  • 4/4 - AWS Well-Architected Tool: A practical guide to using the AWS Well-Architected Tool to assess, improve, and continuously optimize your workloads, with screenshots and step-by-step guidance.

1. Introduction

In this article, we’re focusing on quick wins: practical, actionable steps you can take right now to improve your AWS architecture by following the AWS Well-Architected Framework. Each of the Six Pillars is packed with best practices, and while implementing the entire framework takes time, there are some small changes you can make today that will have an immediate impact.

This guide provides a pillar-by-pillar breakdown of quick wins that are easy to implement and can help you move towards operational excellence, security, reliability, performance efficiency, cost optimization, and sustainability in your AWS workloads.

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2. Take action: Quick-Wins per Pillar

More Actionable Insights

Now that we’ve explored the six pillars in detail, here’s a consolidated set of actionable insights you can start applying today.

Quick wins are essential for teams looking to get started with the AWS Well-Architected Framework because they offer immediate, actionable improvements without requiring a complete revision of your cloud environment. These small but impactful changes allow teams to improve performance, security, and cost efficiency quickly, helping build momentum toward longer-term architectural goals. By tackling quick wins first, teams can realize tangible benefits and demonstrate progress, making it easier to justify and implement more comprehensive strategies after that.

2.1 Take action: Operational Excellence

Main Recommendation: Automate everything you can to minimize human error and improve operational efficiency.

  • Quick-Wins:
    • Document operational procedures: Create a shared document for key processes.
    • Regularly review your operational procedures and identify opportunities where automation can enhance efficiency and free up valuable time.
    • Set up basic alerts: Use AWS CloudWatch to create basic monitoring alerts for critical services.
    • Enable AWS Config: Quickly enable AWS Config to track configuration changes and improve auditing.
    • Use AWS Trusted Advisor to identify operational improvements.
  • Other important recommendations:
    • Continuously improve your operational procedures through frequent review and feedback.
    • Focus on building a culture of accountability and continuous improvement.

2.2 Take action: Security

Main Recommendation: Apply security from the beginning and in all layers.

  • Quick-Wins:
    • Enable AWS Security Hub: Activate AWS Security Hub to get a centralized view of your security alerts and compliance status.
    • Enable AWS Security Hub best practice standards: Quickly configure built-in best practice standards in Security Hub to assess compliance and detect potential security gaps.
    • Enable Amazon GuardDuty: Turn on Amazon GuardDuty for threat detection and monitoring unauthorized activities in real-time.
    • Enable MFA: Implement multi-factor authentication across all AWS accounts.
    • Turn on AWS Config: Continuously evaluate the compliance of your AWS resources using AWS Config rules.
    • Enable EBS default encryption for new volumes.
  • Other important recommendations:
    • Build a layered security approach that includes identity management, encryption, and network protection.
    • Regularly assess and audit your security posture with automated compliance checks.

2.3 Take action: Reliability

Main Recommendation: Build for failure; assume services will fail and design for graceful recovery.

  • Quick-Wins:
    • Set up CloudWatch alarms: Create alarms for critical resource metrics (CPU, memory) to detect issues early.
    • Create backups: Centralize and automate backups across your services using AWS Backup.
    • Document recovery procedures: Quickly outline recovery steps for your key services in case of an incident.
    • Test system resilience: Use AWS Fault Injection Simulator to conduct quick fault injection tests, such as simulating a service failure or network disruption.
  • Other important recommendations:
    • Ensure redundancy and fault tolerance at all levels of your architecture.
    • Implement proactive monitoring and automated recovery for key services.

2.4 Take action: Performance Efficiency

Main Recommendation: Continuously review your resource usage to ensure you’re not over-provisioned.

  • Quick-Wins:
    • Use AWS Compute Optimizer: Activate Compute Optimizer to receive recommendations for right-sizing your instances and other resources.
    • Right-Size Instances: Use AWS Trusted Advisor to review and adjust EC2 instance sizes for optimal performance and cost.
    • Clean up unused resources: Identify and terminate unused EC2 instances, EBS volumes, and other resources to improve efficiency.
  • Other important recommendations:
    • Regularly optimize and scale resources to meet demand efficiently.
    • Leverage serverless or managed services to minimize infrastructure management and focus on performance.

2.5 Take action: Cost Optimization

Main Recommendation: Always optimize by rightsizing and using savings plans wherever possible.

  • Quick-Wins:
    • Enable AWS Trusted Advisor: Turn on Trusted Advisor to receive insights on cost-saving opportunities across your AWS services.
    • Set budget alerts: Use AWS Budgets to create cost thresholds and receive alerts if you’re exceeding your budget.
    • Review AWS Cost Explorer: Analyze your AWS costs and usage patterns in the Cost Explorer dashboard for better financial efficiency.
    • Delete unused resources: Regularly review and terminate any unused or underutilized resources to minimize costs.
    • Review and terminate unused or underutilized instances.
  • Other important recommendations:
    • Regularly assess your workloads for cost-saving opportunities, using tools like Cost Explorer and Trusted Advisor.
    • Adopt a consumption model that encourages resource efficiency and financial sustainability.

2.6 Take action: Sustainability

Main Recommendation: Optimize infrastructure usage by embracing serverless and managed services for sustainability.

  • Quick-Wins:
    • Turn Off Idle Resources: Automate shutdown of non-critical resources outside business hours.
    • Optimize storage: Review your S3 buckets and enable S3 Intelligent-Tiering to optimize storage costs based on access patterns.
    • Enable resource usage reporting: Set up reporting to track and optimize resource usage for environmental sustainability.
    • Leverage AWS managed services to benefit from AWS’s energy-efficient infrastructure.
    • Minimize data transfer costs by keeping workloads and resources within the same region.
    • Track your AWS carbon footprint with the AWS Customer Carbon Footprint Tool.
  • Other important recommendations:
    • Reduce your carbon footprint by optimizing resource usage and using energy-efficient services.
    • Automate resource management to minimize environmental impact and reduce operational costs.

2.7. Visualizing the Quick-Wins

mindmap
  Take action
    Operational Excellence
      Main_Recommendation
        Automate Everything
      Quick-Wins
        Document Operational Procedures
        Identify Automation Opportunities
        Set Up Basic Alerts
        Enable AWS Config
        Use AWS Trusted Advisor for Operational Improvements
    Security
      Main_Recommendation
        Apply Security From The Beginning
      Quick-Wins
        Enable AWS Security Hub
        Enable AWS Security Hub Best Practice Standards
        Enable Amazon GuardDuty
        Enable MFA
        Turn on AWS Config
        Enable EBS Default Encryption for New Volumes
    Reliability
      Main_Recommendation
        Build For Failure
      Quick-Wins
        Set Up CloudWatch Alarms
        Create Backups
        Document Recovery Procedures
        Test System Resilience
    Performance Efficiency
      Main_Recommendation
        Review Resource Usage
      Quick-Wins
        Use AWS Compute Optimizer
        Right-Size Instances
        Clean Up Unused Resources
        Review AWS Trusted Advisor for Optimization
    Cost Optimization
      Main_Recommendation
        Optimize and Use Savings Plans
      Quick-Wins
        Enable AWS Trusted Advisor
        Set Budget Alerts
        Review AWS Cost Explorer
        Delete Unused Resources
        Review Unused Instances
    Sustainability
      Main_Recommendation
        Optimize Infrastructure Usage
      Quick-Wins
        Turn Off Idle Resources
        Optimize Storage with S3 Intelligent-Tiering
        Enable Resource Usage Reporting
        Track Carbon Footprint Using AWS Tools

3. Conclusion

The quick wins provided here offer a great starting point for applying AWS Well-Architected best practices in manageable steps. By making small, targeted improvements, you can rapidly enhance the efficiency, security, and reliability of your cloud environment. These quick wins are especially valuable as you continue to refine and evolve your architecture.

However, implementing quick wins is just the beginning. To fully optimize your workloads and ensure you’re following best practices across all pillars, a more comprehensive review is necessary. This is where the AWS Well-Architected Tool comes into play. In the next article, we’ll guide you through using the AWS Well-Architected Tool, which provides a structured way to assess your workloads, identify weaknesses, and implement long-term improvements.

Remember, the AWS Well-Architected Framework is designed for continuous improvement, so start small and iterate frequently. Implementing these quick wins is just the first step on your path to building robust, secure, and efficient cloud architectures.

Do you want more? Here is the next and last article of the series: AWS Well-Architected Tool.

For further reading, explore AWS’s comprehensive resources:

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This post is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by the author.