Good Morning. Happy Friday! You might have heard of AWS Well Architected Framework, and wonder what it is. In this post, we’ll dive deep into what the AWS Well Architected Framework (WAFR), how it works, and how you can benefit from it.

Whether you’re a startup juggling a couple of EC2 instances or an enterprise with a sprawling cloud footprint in the six, seven, or eight figures, the AWS Well Architected Framework is your ticket to building workloads that are reliable, secure, and follow AWS best practices. So please be sure to buckle up, it’s time to architect like a pro, no hard hat required!

What Is the AWS Well-Architected Framework?

Let’s start with the basics: What exactly is the AWS Well-Architected Framework? Think of it as a battle-tested playbook from AWS designed to help you build and maintain cloud workloads that are robust, cost-effective, and ready for anything. Some examples include cyberattacks, traffic spikes, or your CEO asking, “Why’s this bill so high?” It’s not just a checklist though “as described by AWS”, but the goal is to cultivate a mindset that ensures your systems are well-architected, optimized for performance, security, and sustainability.

At its core, the framework answers a big question: How do you design cloud solutions that don’t collapse under pressure or cost you a fortune? AWS distilled years of expertise into this free resource, making it a must-know for anyone serious about cloud management. Whether you’re optimizing costs, boosting reliability, or going green, it’s your north star.

There are 6 Pillars of the AWS Well-Architected Framework:

1) Operational Excellence

2) Security

3) Reliability

4) Performance Efficiency

5) Cost Optimization

6) Sustainability

Six WAFR Pillars…

1) Operational Excellence

This pillar is all about running your systems like a Michelin-starred kitchen: smooth, predictable, and ready for chaos. It’s about making sure DevOps / Engineering teams are automating, monitoring, and asking, “What could go wrong?” before it does. It’s important to use a solution like CloudWatch to track performance, set up automated deployments with CodePipeline, and document processes so your team isn’t scrambling during a 3 a.m. outage.

2) Security

Cyber Security is only becoming more important. Therefore it is important to lock it down tighter than your grandma’s secret family cookie recipe. The security pillar focuses on protecting data, managing access, and stopping threats way in advance by being exra safe. Think IAM roles, encryption (in transit also, and) everywhere (S3, RDS, you name it), and proactive tools like AWS Shield to fend off DDoS attacks.

3) Reliability

AWS WAFR programs goal is to build reliable systems that don’t flake out when the going gets tough. Reliability means auto-healing with failover (hello, Multi-AZ RDS!), scaling gracefully under load with Auto Scaling, and recovering faster than a cat with nine lives. It’s about keeping your app online, no matter what.

4) Performance Efficiency

Squeeze every drop of power from your resources without waste. This pillar pushes you to pick the right instance types (don’t run a Ferrari for a grocery run), embrace serverless with Lambda, and avoid overprovisioning like it’s a buffet with tiny plates to keep costs down. Efficiency = speed + savings.

5) Cost Optimization

Spend smart, not hard. The four values of FinOps is cost optimization, visibility, control, and collaboration. Cost optimization pillar is your ticket to taming that AWS bill. Use reserved instances, shut down idle resources, and treat your budget like a Tetris game, where you fit everything just right. Tools like AWS Cost Explorer (my old pal from last time!) pair perfectly here.

6) Sustainability

Go green without hugging trees in hemp sandals. Sustainability is the newest pillar, urging you to minimize energy waste with efficient designs—think serverless architectures, shared resources, and fewer overpowered VMs. It’s good for the planet and your PR team.

These six pillars work together to create workloads that shine—secure, reliable, fast, affordable, and eco-friendly. Ready to see them in action?

Why conduct Well-Architected reviews?

1) You Can Earn AWS Credits if You Become Well-Architected: You can earn AWS credits if you become well architected. For each account (or workload) you become well architected on, you can usually earn up to 10% of your monthly net new spend in credits. In 2025, they changed the rules to this old model, and you need to work with your AWS Account Manager to help make sure you get the full credits. Before that, in 2024 and prior, there was a $5,000 AWS credit for each workload (usually 1 account per workload) that had become well architected. This shift back to a percentage-based incentive makes it even more appealing for organizations with higher monthly spends, as the potential savings scale with usage. Partnering with your Account Manager ensures you navigate the process smoothly, unlocking these credits as a reward for aligning with AWS’s best practices.

2) It Builds Trust with Potential Customers: It builds trust with potential customers showing your infrastructure is AWS Well Architected because it is an AWS-backed program, and also shows that your team thinks carefully about designing and running the most optimal, secure, and reliable applications. This official endorsement from AWS carries weight, assuring clients that your systems meet rigorous standards for performance and protection. It’s a clear signal that your organization doesn’t just throw solutions together—you prioritize resilience and efficiency, which can be a deciding factor for prospects comparing vendors. Beyond that, it highlights your team’s expertise and dedication, proving you’re not cutting corners but instead investing in long-term stability. This can also open doors to new partnerships, as businesses seeking reliable collaborators often look for such credentials, giving you a competitive edge in the market.

3) It Reduces Risks and Prevents Costly Downtime: Conducting Well-Architected reviews helps you proactively identify and mitigate risks before they turn into expensive problems. By evaluating your workloads against AWS’s five pillars, you can spot vulnerabilities—like weak security configurations or single points of failure—that might otherwise lead to breaches or outages. Preventing these issues saves you from the financial and reputational damage of downtime, which can cost businesses thousands per hour depending on their scale. For example, a review might recommend redundancy measures or auto-scaling setups, ensuring your applications stay online even under stress. This focus on reliability not only protects your bottom line but also keeps your customers happy, avoiding the frustration and churn that come with service interruptions.

4) It Drives Continuous Improvement and Future-Readiness: Well-Architected reviews aren’t a one-time fix—they instill a mindset of ongoing optimization that keeps your infrastructure ready for whatever’s next. By regularly assessing your systems, you uncover opportunities to refine performance, cut costs, and adapt to evolving business needs. This might mean adopting newer AWS services, streamlining resource usage, or preparing for sudden spikes in demand as your company grows. The process gives your team actionable insights from AWS experts or partners, turning each review into a learning experience that sharpens your cloud strategy. In a fast-moving tech landscape, this commitment to staying ahead ensures you’re not just keeping up but positioning yourself to innovate and scale with confidence.

How to Get Well-Architected?

Step 1: Find an AWS Well-Architected Partner

In order to become AWS Well-Architected, you will need to work with an AWS approved partner. They will be the driver to make sure you go through AWS’s standards and unlocks the full benefits of the program. These partners are certified by AWS, and bring expertise and tools to assess your workloads against the six pillars.

They guide you through the process, starting with a detailed questionnaire in the AWS Well-Architected Tool, followed by a collaborative analysis of your architecture. They way AWS designs this is to NOT be a solo job, and instead help partners provide an outside perspective, spotting issues you might overlook and offering tailored recommendations. Plus, working with them is a requirement to qualify for the AWS credits.

Step Two: Work with the Well-Architected Partner to Define Workloads + Goals

They may start with defining your workloads. A workload is usually one AWS account, however it can also be the case that there are multiple workloads within a given AWS Account. Then you may work with your AWS Partner (and account manager) to ensure the review targets fall within AWS best practices.

Step Three: Get the AWS Account Manager Involved and Increase Spend

This step is primarily led by your AWS partner, but the new AWS Well Architected Program requires you to work also with your AWS Account Manager. This means you will need to work with both parties to become well architected with this list of questions. Your AWS Partner will walk you through its questions (hundreds of them) covering everything from how you monitor performance to how you handle disaster recovery. You’ll answer based on your current setup, and the tool flags high-risk issues, like unencrypted data or lack of backups, that need immediate attention. Then you must remediate roughly half (or more) of these high risk issues.

With the new program update, you are also required to show net new revenue (for AWS, meaning spending more that you can contribute straight to doing the AWS Well Architected Review). This is because in order to get AWS credits ($), you can only get 10% of net new revenue.

Step Four: Work with your Partner to Remediate and Finish!

Go through your required follow-through and remediation to actually make your workloads well-architected, once you’ve got your report. Then you and your AWS Partner prioritize the findings, tackling critical risks first, like adding multi-region failover or tightening access controls. This phase is hands-on: your team implements changes, tests them, and verifies they work as intended. Your partner might suggest automation scripts or AWS services such as CloudFormation or Shield to streamline fixes (and upsell you, so they can justify the spend increase on your account). Then, you re-run the tool to confirm compliance, closing the loop. This iterative process ensures you’re not just identifying problems but solving them, locking in the reliability, efficiency, and credits that come with being truly Well-Architected. Now you should get well architected in a few weeks upon submission by the well architected partner.

Leading AWS Well Architected Partners

StackZone

StackZone is a cloud management platform that provides not only full cloud visibility but also authorizations to ensure continued compliance. Simply achieve AWS Well Architected Framework compliance by implementing best practices through automation with just a few clicks. StackZone enhances continuous Security, Reliability, Cost Optimization, Performance, and Sustainability compliance every organization needs to grow and scale its cloud-based solutions.

Swayam

Swayam is the simplest yet most powerful Cloud Management Platform available. Swayam allows you to manage Cloud Operations, Security Compliances, Infrastructure Scheduling, Cost Optimisation and Billing Management (FinOps), Advanced Reporting. In a nutshell Swayam has everything that you need to manage your cloud Infrastructure.

6pillars AUTOMATE+

Free up your valuable resources. 6pillars AUTOMATE+ greatly accelerates the process of completing any AWS Well-Architected Framework Review by using powerful, fully-integrated automation to define/auto create your Well-Architected Tool test workloads, autodetect your workload posture, autofill review questions and offers the option to leverage safe, opt-in, self-healing auto-remediation to resolve security and compliance issues. Once complete, AUTOMATE+ can generate native AWS Well-Architected Framework Reports and can assist in the process of remediation funding requests.

Real-World Examples of Companies Using AWS Well-Architected Framework

Example 1: The Overloaded Startup

A scrappy startup came to me with a bloated AWS bill—think “ordering-caviar-on-a-ramen-budget” bloated. Their app ran on oversized EC2 instances (Performance Efficiency fail) and had no failover (Reliability oops). We rightsized their instances with t3.mediums, added Auto Scaling, and cut costs by 50% while keeping uptime at 100%. They celebrated with pizza; I basked in the glory.

Example 2: The Security Slip-Up

Another client had S3 buckets open to the world—like leaving your front door unlocked in a sketchy neighborhood (Security no-no). We tightened them up with IAM policies, enabled server-side encryption, and added MFA for good measure. Now their data’s safer than a Swiss bank vault, and they sleep better at night.

Example 3: The Green Machine

A sustainability-focused company wanted to shrink their carbon footprint. Their setup? Underused VMs chugging energy like old clunkers (Sustainability miss). We shifted to Lambda for bursty workloads, consolidated resources, and slashed both emissions and costs. Mother Nature sent a thank-you note; their CFO did a happy dance.

Your cloud future’s looking bright, and I’m here rooting for you. Don’t let your instances run wild like unsupervised toddlers.

Yaddle Out!