Designing a Well-Architected cloud framework
by Matthew Heap, Regional Manager, Solutions Architecture at Rackspace
Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) business leaders now acknowledge that unceasing digital transformation is a business necessity. This is particularly so in Asia, where government-led initiatives such as Singapore’s SMEs Go Digital programme and Thailand’s Digital Economy Promotion Agency have made it the norm.
While mindsets have shifted, the number of business outcomes expected from digital transformation is also multiplying. IT is now expected to: create new business models; accelerate the delivery of products and services; increase business agility; deliver superior customer experiences; as well as fortify security and compliance.
IT must lead its business to deliver on these transformative opportunities with a digital cloud strategy driving the growth of the business. A well-designed cloud strategy (which often includes a hybrid or multicloud approach) delivers optimised choices of the latest technologies, all deployed to the right private cloud, public cloud, or hybrid environment. This also eases migration of traditional IT applications and data that need a cloud foundation to meet the demands of an everything-as-a-service digital world.
At Rackspace, we pride ourselves on providing unbiased expertise and technology agnosticism in helping our customers deliver on their cloud visions. In this article, I’d like to delve into one of the leading cloud providers in the market, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and its Well-Architected Framework.
AWS developed this framework to help cloud architects build secure, high-performing, resilient and efficient infrastructure for applications. It also offers customers a consistent way to evaluate those architectures, taking into account technical, financial and operational considerations.
The Well-Architected Framework is divided into five key pillars of operational excellence, security, reliability, performance efficiency and cost optimisation. A Well-Architected review examines your current-state environment against these key pillars, but it is also a vehicle to discuss future state options that may benefit your organisation, such as serverless or high performance computing. It’s also important to recognise that the Well-Architected review is:
· Not an audit: the review instead serves a unique place in the process of technology improvement.
· Not a way to place blame: Well-Architected is about constant and continual improvement and best practice.
· Not a condemnation of bad design: solution architecture is as much art as science; there are numerous ways to address requirements.
· Not a long engagement: Well-Architected reviews are measured in days and not weeks.
I’d also like to address one of the most common concerns I hear from business leaders: security. Given today’s advanced threat landscape, smart organisations know they must make the security of their digital environments a top priority with the financial risks of not doing so continuing to increase.
The three biggest concerns we hear from customers seeking a more robust digital security posture are: choosing the right cloud to optimise applications for security, performance and reliability; finding the expertise to build and manage an IT environment that meets security and compliance criteria; and being able to afford that expertise.
Here are my top three tips for a robust security strategy:
· Addressing security on day 1: It’s critical to include your organisation’s particular security and compliance requirements when mapping out your cloud strategy. This should be considered when choosing the right platform for your applications and business objectives, designing applications to be secure and successfully building and/or migrating applications in accordance with AWS best practices.
· Ongoing management to optimise for performance and security: Once you’re up and running on AWS, ongoing monitoring and management at the infrastructure and application levels will enable you get the most out of your investment, decrease risk and optimise your applications and databases for performance and cost.
· Remaining proactive: Don’t just sit back and wait for a breach — cut hackers off before a breach occurs. Enlist a team of security experts to thoroughly assess your environment, evaluate your vulnerabilities, predefine remediation actions, and determine the best solutions to meet the security and compliance needs of your business.
Engaging third-party experts to review the architecture of your digital platform ensures your organisation is receiving maximum business value from that platform. For businesses and leaders, it will help harness the potential to stay ahead of industry competitors when it comes to benefitting from the digital transformation advantages.
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| Source: Rackspace. Heap. |
While mindsets have shifted, the number of business outcomes expected from digital transformation is also multiplying. IT is now expected to: create new business models; accelerate the delivery of products and services; increase business agility; deliver superior customer experiences; as well as fortify security and compliance.
IT must lead its business to deliver on these transformative opportunities with a digital cloud strategy driving the growth of the business. A well-designed cloud strategy (which often includes a hybrid or multicloud approach) delivers optimised choices of the latest technologies, all deployed to the right private cloud, public cloud, or hybrid environment. This also eases migration of traditional IT applications and data that need a cloud foundation to meet the demands of an everything-as-a-service digital world.
At Rackspace, we pride ourselves on providing unbiased expertise and technology agnosticism in helping our customers deliver on their cloud visions. In this article, I’d like to delve into one of the leading cloud providers in the market, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and its Well-Architected Framework.
AWS developed this framework to help cloud architects build secure, high-performing, resilient and efficient infrastructure for applications. It also offers customers a consistent way to evaluate those architectures, taking into account technical, financial and operational considerations.
The Well-Architected Framework is divided into five key pillars of operational excellence, security, reliability, performance efficiency and cost optimisation. A Well-Architected review examines your current-state environment against these key pillars, but it is also a vehicle to discuss future state options that may benefit your organisation, such as serverless or high performance computing. It’s also important to recognise that the Well-Architected review is:
· Not an audit: the review instead serves a unique place in the process of technology improvement.
· Not a way to place blame: Well-Architected is about constant and continual improvement and best practice.
· Not a condemnation of bad design: solution architecture is as much art as science; there are numerous ways to address requirements.
· Not a long engagement: Well-Architected reviews are measured in days and not weeks.
I’d also like to address one of the most common concerns I hear from business leaders: security. Given today’s advanced threat landscape, smart organisations know they must make the security of their digital environments a top priority with the financial risks of not doing so continuing to increase.
The three biggest concerns we hear from customers seeking a more robust digital security posture are: choosing the right cloud to optimise applications for security, performance and reliability; finding the expertise to build and manage an IT environment that meets security and compliance criteria; and being able to afford that expertise.
Here are my top three tips for a robust security strategy:
· Addressing security on day 1: It’s critical to include your organisation’s particular security and compliance requirements when mapping out your cloud strategy. This should be considered when choosing the right platform for your applications and business objectives, designing applications to be secure and successfully building and/or migrating applications in accordance with AWS best practices.
· Ongoing management to optimise for performance and security: Once you’re up and running on AWS, ongoing monitoring and management at the infrastructure and application levels will enable you get the most out of your investment, decrease risk and optimise your applications and databases for performance and cost.
· Remaining proactive: Don’t just sit back and wait for a breach — cut hackers off before a breach occurs. Enlist a team of security experts to thoroughly assess your environment, evaluate your vulnerabilities, predefine remediation actions, and determine the best solutions to meet the security and compliance needs of your business.
Engaging third-party experts to review the architecture of your digital platform ensures your organisation is receiving maximum business value from that platform. For businesses and leaders, it will help harness the potential to stay ahead of industry competitors when it comes to benefitting from the digital transformation advantages.
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