Review the workload in context
Start with the application purpose, users, owners, and business impact. Identify availability and recovery requirements, data sensitivity, demand patterns, and cost constraints. A useful review considers how the workload is operated as well as how it is designed.
The six pillars
Operational excellence
Consider monitoring, change management, incident response, and learning from operational events.
Security
Review identity, access, data protection, detection, and response practices.
Reliability
Assess recovery procedures, dependency failures, capacity, and how changes affect service continuity.
Performance efficiency
Evaluate how compute, storage, databases, and networking support workload demand.
Cost optimisation
Consider usage visibility, resource sizing, financial ownership, and purchasing choices.
Sustainability
Review resource efficiency and how workload design can reduce unnecessary consumption.
Turn findings into an improvement plan
Document the current design and gather evidence such as diagrams, monitoring data, access practices, and recovery procedures. Discuss gaps with workload owners. Assign priorities, responsible people, and target dates so that review findings lead to concrete work.
Use business needs to guide trade-offs
Some changes can affect several pillars. For example, an additional recovery environment may improve resilience while increasing cost. Evaluate choices against the workload requirements and document the reasoning behind the decision.
Make review a continuing practice
Revisit the workload after significant releases, infrastructure changes, incidents, or shifts in usage. Confirm whether completed changes addressed the findings and identify new priorities. Architecture reviews work best as part of an ongoing improvement process.
How Anjana Cloud9 Solutions can help
As an AWS Well-Architected Partner, Anjana Cloud9 Solutions supports structured workload reviews and practical improvement planning. Our cloud architects and engineers work with your team to understand the environment, document findings, and agree on the next steps.