The cloud enables Well-Architected environments from bootstrap startups to well-funded enterprises, all while remaining cost effective. Learn how to properly design your product’s cloud architecture by following best practices and enhancing your “cloud” knowledge. In this session we will walk through the A Well-Architected AWS Framework which is based on four pillars—security, reliability, performance efficiency, and cost optimization. By Oron Adam, Emind CTO

1. Designing a
“Well Architected”
SaaS
Oron Adam
CTO & Architect
Emind Cloud Experts

3. Emind’s Cloud Architecture Workshop
3-4 Hours initial meeting
Up to 10 hours total meetings + design hours
Deliverables:
● AWS Blueprint
● SOW (Scope of Work)
● AWS Monthly Quote

4. Architecture decisions can have a
serious impact on the business
~45 questions regarding critical challenges
https://d0.awsstatic.com/whitepapers/architecture/AWS_Well-Architected_Framework.pdf

5. A well architected system is:
● Secure
● Reliable (Fault Tolerance)
● High performing and efficient
● Cost Effective

6. Reliable

7. Secure

8. High Performance & Efficiency

9. The 4 pillars
Security (SEC) The ability to protect information, systems, and assets while
delivering business value through risk assessments and mitigation
strategies.
Reliability (REL) The ability of a system to recover from infrastructure or service failures,
dynamically acquire computing resources to meet demand, and mitigate disruptions such as
misconfigurations or transient network issues.
Performance (PERF) Efficiency The ability to use computing resources efficiently to meet
system requirements, and to maintain that efficiency as demand changes and technologies
evolve.
Cost Optimization (COST) The ability to avoid or eliminate unneeded cost or suboptimal
resources.

10. Cost Effective

11. But remember … Everything is a tradeoff

12. Tradeoffs 2

13. Security
SEC 1. How are you encrypting and protecting your data at rest?
SEC 2. How are you encrypting and protecting your data in transit?

14. Security
SEC 2. How are you encrypting and protecting your data in transit?

15. Security
SEC 3. How are you protecting
access to and use of the AWS root
account credentials?
SEC 4. How are you defining roles
and responsibilities of system users
to control human access to the AWS
Management Console and APIs?

16. Security
SEC 5. How are you limiting automated access (such as from applications, scripts, or third-
party tools or services) to AWS resources?
SEC 6. How are you managing keys and credentials?

17. Security
SEC 7. How are you enforcing network and host-level boundary protection?
SEC 8. How are you enforcing AWS service level protection?
SEC 9. How are you protecting the integrity of the operating systems on your Amazon EC2
instances?

18. Security with UTMS & ELBs

19. Security
SEC 10.How are you capturing and analyzing AWS logs?

20. Reliability
REL 1. How are you managing AWS service limits for your account?
REL 2. How are you planning your network topology on AWS?
REL 3. Do you have an escalation path to deal with technical issues?

21. Design for failure Multi AZ

22. Design for failure cont.

23. Design for failure Databases

24. Reliability
REL 4. How does your system adapt to
changes in demand?

25. Reliability
REL 5. How are you monitoring AWS resources?

26. Reliability
REL 6. How are you executing change management?

27. Reliability
REL 7. How are you backing up your data?

28. Reliability
REL 8. How does your system withstand component failures?
REL 9. How are you planning for recovery?

29. Testing Systems @ Production scale
After the build is done

30. Reliability
Design for failure
Decouple Services

31. Traceability and Log Aggregation
ELK
Graylog
Logz.IO
Other SaaS vendors

32. Performance & Efficiency
Compute
Storage
Databases
Space-time tradeoff

33. Performance & Efficiency 2
Serverless architectures
Build Vs Buy
Business performance - bring value faster, experiment faster and cheaper with automation

34. Performance & Efficiency
PERF 1. How do you select the appropriate instance type for your system?
PERF 2. How do you ensure that you continue to have the most appropriate instance type as
new instance types and features are introduced?
PERF 3. How do you monitor your instances post launch to ensure they are performing as
expected?
PERF 4. How do you ensure that the quantity of your instances matches demand?

35. Performance & Efficiency
PERF 5. How do you select the appropriate storage solution for your system?
PERF 6. How do you ensure that you continue to have the most appropriate storage solution as
new storage solutions and features are launched?
PERF 7. How do you monitor your storage solution to ensure it is performing as expected?
PERF 8. How do you ensure that the capacity and throughput of your storage solutions
matches demand?

36. Performance & Efficiency
PERF 9. How do you select the appropriate database solution for your system?

37. Performance & Efficiency
PERF 10. How do you ensure that you continue to have the most appropriate database solution
and features as new database solution and features are launched?
PERF 11. How do you monitor your databases to ensure performance is as expected?
PERF 12. How do you ensure the capacity and throughput of your databases matches demand?

38. Performance & Efficiency
PERF 13. How do you select the appropriate proximity and caching solutions for your system?

39. Performance & Efficiency
PERF 14. How do you ensure that you continue to have the most appropriate proximity and
caching solutions as new solutions are launched?
PERF 15. How do you monitor your proximity and caching solutions to ensure performance is
as expected?
PERF 16. How do you ensure that the proximity and caching solutions you have matches
demand?

40. Cost Optimization
COST 1. How do you make sure your capacity matches but does not substantially exceed what
you need?
COST 2. How are you optimizing your usage of AWS services?

41. Cost Optimization
COST 3. Have you selected the
appropriate resource types to meet
your cost targets?
COST 4. Have you selected the
appropriate pricing model to meet
your cost targets?
COST 5. Are there managed services
(higher-level services than Amazon
EC2, Amazon EBS, and Amazon S3)
that you can use to improve your
ROI?

42. Cost Optimization
COST 5. Are there managed services
(higher-level services than Amazon
EC2, Amazon EBS, and Amazon S3)
that you can use to improve your
ROI?

43. Cost Optimization
COST 6. What access controls and
procedures do you have in place to
govern AWS costs?
COST 7. How are you monitoring
usage and spending?

44. Cost Optimization
COST 8. How do you decommission resources that you no longer need, or stop resources
that are temporarily not needed?
COST 9. How do you consider data-transfer charges when designing your architecture?

45. Cost Optimization
COST 10. How do you manage and/or consider the adoption of new services?

46. Cost Optimization
● Identify cost groups by tagging
● Free Cloudyn for Emind customers!
● Define owners for expenditure and make them optimize
● Use manage services to reduce TCO
● Trade CAPEX for OPEX
● Economies of Scale

47. Cost Optimization 2
● Match supply and demand - ASGs
● Use the right family type
● Consider Reserving
● Use Spots - Self or SpotInst

48. Key Takeaway
Easy to design “well architected” system
Use the framework as a check list

49. Thank you