Crayon – Well-Architected Framework Review

The Well-Architected Framework Review is a mechanism used to teach, measure, and improve a workload based on the customers business and technical objectives and consists of assessing a specific, business-critical workload against the six pillars as Operational Excellence, Security, Reliability, Performance Efficiency, Cost Optimization and Sustainability.

The objective is to gain a clear understanding the state of the workload and customers understanding of architectural best-practices

The WAFR covers all of your existing AWS applications such as EC2, S3, AWS Lambda and many more.

The Well-Architected Framework Review is not an audit – it is a detailed list of recommendations and actionable improvements.

The outcome of the review is a list of identified risks, along with an understandable, prioritized, size estimated and actionable recommendation plan that allows you to start working with Crayon’s AWS Cloud Architects to improve and secure your solution.

Operational Excellence

• Focuses on running and monitoring systems and continually improving processes and procedures

• Key topics include automating changes, responding to events, and defining standards to manage daily operations

Security

• Focuses on protecting information, systems and data

• Key topics include confidentiality and integrity of data, managing user permissions and establishing controls to detect security events

Reliability

• Focuses on workloads performing their intended functions and how to recover quickly from failure to meet demands

• Key topics include distributed system design, recovery planning and adapting to changing requirements

Performance Efficiency

• Focuses on structured and streamlined allocation of IT and computing resources

• Key topics include selecting resource types and sizes optimized for workload requirements, monitoring performance and maintaining efficiency as business needs evolve

Cost Optimization

• Focuses on avoiding unnecessary costs

• Key topics include understanding spending over time and controlling fund allocation, selecting resources of the right type and quantity and scaling to meet business needs without overspending

Sustainability

• Focuses on minimizing the environmental impacts of running cloud workloads

• Key topics include a shared responsibility model for sustainability, understanding impact and maximizing utilization to minimize required resources and reduce downstream impacts

Review Process

Step 1: Identify

Customer identifies a workload (on-prem, hybrid or on AWS)

Step 2: Review

Crayon conducts an AWS Well-Architected Framework Review in an interactive workshop with the key stakeholders of the customer

Step 3: Process

Crayon delivers and presents results to the customer

Step 4: Agree

Crayon creates a Statement of Work (SoW) for improving the solution, the SoW is signed by the customer

Step 5: Improve

Crayon requests the funding for the customer from AWS

How we conduct the review

Typically, a 4–6 hours interactive session(s) (virtual meeting or on-site at the customer’s location)

The reviewer is AWS Solutions Architect Professional level certified and accredited for Well-Architected Framework Reviews by AWS

Application owners on the customer’s side

Technical experts knowledgeable about the landscape on the customer’s side

Starts with short presentation about the application (purpose, architecture, requirements)

Not an audit, rather a conversation using the Well-Architected Framework Review Tool in the AWS console

Progressing pillar by pillar, understand the landscape and the current state of work