The system runs, but nobody dares touch it
The architecture was built by several people at different times with no documentation, so every change feels risky.
AWS Well-Architected Framework
Architecture review against the criteria AWS uses on itself
Well-Architected Framework is a set of AWS questions distilled from thousands of real systems. HiTechCloud is a Well-Architected Partner — we run that review on your system and return a prioritized list of risks with remediation steps.
- HiTechCloud’s role
- AWS Well-Architected Partner
- Review scope
- The six pillars of the Well-Architected Framework
- Deliverables
- A risk report and a prioritized remediation plan
- Duration
- Usually 1–2 weeks per workload
Overview
One question set, six perspectives, nowhere to soften the answer
Well-Architected Framework is not a scoring tool for display. It is a list of specific questions — how does your system recover when a Region fails, how often is access reviewed, which department are costs assigned to — that your technical team is required to answer with evidence, not intentions.
The output is not a score. It is a list of risks, graded by AWS as high risk and medium risk, each with a recommended fix.
We run this review for systems on AWS, and apply the same criteria to systems on HiTechCloud infrastructure or hybrid — because most questions about reliability, security and operations do not depend on where the servers sit.
When to review
Signs the architecture is accumulating risk nobody has looked at
The cloud bill climbs every month with no explanation
Costs rise month over month without mapping to any workload, and nobody knows what can be switched off.
Recovery has never been rehearsed
Backups exist, but no restore has ever been tested, so nobody knows how long it takes or how much data is lost.
A traffic surge or an audit is coming
Ahead of peak season, a funding round or a partner assessment, you need an independent review rather than reassurance.
Six pillars
What gets reviewed
Each pillar is a set of questions, answered together with your engineers in face-to-face sessions.
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01
Operational excellence
What process governs deployment, monitoring and change; how incidents are detected, recorded and learned from.
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02
Security
Identity and access management, encryption at rest and in transit, logging, intrusion detection and an incident response process.
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03
Reliability
Fault tolerance at each layer, backup and restore testing, resource limits, and how the system behaves when a component dies.
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04
Performance
Choosing resource types that suit the workload, caching strategy, and how the system scales under a sudden spike.
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05
Cost optimization
Idle resources, over-provisioning, the right purchase model, and whether costs can be attributed per product or team.
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06
Sustainability
Resource use per unit of work, and the architectural changes that reduce it.
Deliverables
A document specific enough to assign work from
The review report goes past observations. Each risk comes with the consequence of ignoring it, how to fix it and the effort involved.
- High and medium risks, listed by pillar.
- A recommended fix for each item, with priority and effort estimate.
- An estimate of what each change costs — and what it saves.
- A phased plan the in-house team can carry out themselves.
Process
How a review is run
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01
Choosing the workload
Setting the review scope — usually one system or one product, not the whole estate at once.
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02
Q&A session
Working directly with your engineers to answer each pillar's questions against the actual system configuration.
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03
Reporting
Consolidating risks, grading severity and building a prioritized remediation plan.
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04
Remediation and re-review
You fix it yourselves or hand it back to HiTechCloud. Once done, the review is rerun to confirm the risks are closed.
When a review is worth running
When a review is worth the most
Before scaling up
- Preparing for peak season or a major campaign.
- You are about to add a market or a product on the same system.
- User numbers are growing faster than planned.
After an incident
- You have just had an outage and need to know what else is exposed.
- Recovery took longer than is acceptable.
- The root cause was never clearly identified.
When costs run over plan
- Infrastructure bills are rising faster than user numbers.
- Costs cannot be attributed to a product or department.
- You need numbers to decide whether to stay or move platform.
Ahead of a compliance audit
- Preparing evidence for an internal or third-party audit.
- You need evidence of access control and backups.
- Major clients ask you to prove operational capability.
FAQ
FAQ
How is this different from an ordinary architecture consultation?
A Well-Architected Review follows a standard question set built and maintained by AWS, so its scope does not depend on one consultant's experience. Results are recorded in the AWS tool and can be compared between reviews.
Our system is not on AWS — can it still be reviewed?
Yes. Most questions on operations, security, reliability and cost apply to any infrastructure. For non-AWS systems we use the same criteria but do not record results in the AWS tool.
What do we need to prepare?
We need the current architecture diagram, read access to configuration and monitoring data, and someone who knows the system in the sessions. No new documents need writing beforehand.
After the review, must we hire HiTechCloud to fix things?
No. The report is detailed enough for your own engineers to act on. You only hand back the parts you want help with.
Review architecture before the system forces you to.
Get in touch to book a Well-Architected Review for your most critical system and receive a prioritized risk list.
