Module 13 — Well-Architected Solutions

Status: ⬜ upcoming · Domain 1 (Cloud Concepts) · We'll deepen this and build a visual page when we study it.

The AWS Well-Architected Framework — 6 pillars

Best-practice guidance for building on AWS. Mnemonic O-S-R-P-C-S: 1. Operational Excellence — run and monitor systems; continuously improve processes. 2. Security — protect data and systems (confidentiality, integrity, least privilege). 3. Reliability — recover from failure, scale to meet demand (HA, backups, multi-AZ). 4. Performance Efficiency — use resources efficiently; pick the right resource for the job. 5. Cost Optimization — avoid unnecessary cost; pay only for what you need. 6. Sustainability — minimize the environmental impact of workloads.

Supporting

AWS Well-Architected Tool — free console tool to review a workload against the pillars and get improvement recommendations.
Design principles (recurring themes): stop guessing capacity · automate · design for failure · scale horizontally · decouple components · use managed services.

Likely exam framing

Given a scenario, identify which pillar it serves: "recover from failure / multi-AZ" → Reliability; "least privilege / encryption" → Security; "right-size to cut spend" → Cost Optimization; "reduce carbon footprint" → Sustainability.

Don't confuse the 6 pillars (this module) with the 6 advantages of cloud (Module 1) — different lists, both tested.