AWS Well-Architected Tool
Reviewing workloads against the AWS Well-Architected Framework: the six pillars, workloads, lenses, milestones, improvement plans, sharing reviews, the new Well-Architected Agent preview, and cost.
2 min read · Last reviewed · SAA-C03
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What it is
The AWS Well-Architected Tool (AWS WA Tool) provides a consistent process for reviewing and measuring your architecture against the AWS Well-Architected Framework. You answer questions about a workload, and the tool identifies high risk issues (HRIs) and medium risk issues (MRIs), suggests improvements, and tracks progress over time. It has no additional charge.
Choose it when a question asks how to review a workload against AWS best practices, record architecture decisions, or track architectural improvements.
The six pillars
The framework, which also underlies the exam, has six pillars:
- Operational excellence
- Security
- Reliability
- Performance efficiency
- Cost optimization
- Sustainability
Concepts
- Workload: the set of components that together deliver business value, such as an application and its infrastructure. You define a workload, then review it.
- Lenses: sets of questions for measuring the workload. The Well-Architected Framework Lens is applied automatically. Other lenses cover specific domains, such as serverless or SaaS, and you can create custom lenses.
- Milestones: snapshots of the workload's state at a point in time, so you can compare progress.
- Improvement plan: the prioritized list of risks and recommended actions.
- Sharing: share workloads and lenses with other accounts or users.
AWS Well-Architected Agent (preview) is a separate, AI-powered option that delivers personalized recommendations, automation scripts, and IaC (Infrastructure as code)Defining infrastructure, such as networks, servers, and permissions, in text files that are versioned and deployed automatically, instead of setting it up by hand. AWS CloudFormation and the AWS CDK are AWS tools for it.Glossary entry updates. The WA Tool remains the question-based review.
Well-Architected Tool or another option?
| If the requirement is | Choose |
|---|---|
| Review a workload against AWS best practices and track risks | AWS Well-Architected Tool |
| Automated checks of account resources | AWS Trusted Advisor |
| Configuration compliance rules | AWS Config |
| Right-sizing recommendations | AWS Compute Optimizer |
Reverse mindmap: when the question points here
- Yes, when the question says
- Review a workload against the Well-Architected Framework leads to WA Tool
- Identify high-risk issues in an architecture leads to WA Tool review
- Track architecture improvements over time leads to Milestones
- Know the parts
- Six pillars leads to Operational excellence, security, reliability, performance, cost, sustainability
- Domain-specific questions leads to Lenses
- Organization's own standards leads to Custom lens
- No, when the question says
- Automated resource checks leads to Trusted Advisor
Key takeaways
- The WA Tool reviews workloads against the Well-Architected Framework and produces an improvement plan.
- The six pillars are operational excellence, security, reliability, performance efficiency, cost optimization, and sustainability.
- Workloads are reviewed through lenses (the Framework Lens by default, plus specialty and custom lenses); milestones track progress.
- It has no additional charge.
Sources
- AWS Well-Architected User Guide: What is AWS Well-Architected?
- AWS Well-Architected User Guide: Getting started with AWS Well-Architected Tool
- AWS Well-Architected User Guide: Workloads
- AWS Well-Architected User Guide: Using lenses in AWS WA Tool
- AWS Well-Architected User Guide: Milestones
- AWS Well-Architected Framework: The pillars of the framework
- AWS Well-Architected Tool pricing