Overarching service pillar principals
The Well-Architected Framework identifies a set of general design principles to facilitate good design in the cloud:
- Test systems at full production scale.
- Automate as many components as possible to make experimentation as easy as possible.
- Drive architectures using data.
- Stop guessing capacity needs.
- Allow architectures to evolve with new technologies and services.
- Use game days to drive team improvement.
As you are thinking about these service principals and how to put them into practice, realize that sometimes, the principles can feel like they are contradicting each other. The most obvious case is with the cost optimization pillar. If this is the pillar that the organization you are working for is trying to give the most attention, the other pillars can get in the way of pure cost savings. Strengthening weaknesses that you have found in the reliability pillar, most times, means more assets, and assets mean money. However, you can still strive to make those assets as cost-effective as possible so that you comply with all the pillars.