AWS Startup Resiliency Baseline (AWS SRB)

Amazon Web Services (contributors)

January 2024 (document history)

Resiliency is an application's ability to resist or recover from disruptions. For startups, resiliency is crucial. They are expected to provide always-available systems that operate in the always-on cloud. While agility and speed are key competitive advantages for early-stage companies, workload disruptions can quickly derail progress. Disruptions affect customers, reduce revenue, and harm reputations.

By proactively incorporating resiliency into initial architecture designs, startups can continue innovating at speed while avoiding the pitfalls of downtime. The AWS Startup Resiliency Baseline (AWS SRB) provides prescriptive guidance that is designed specifically for startups that are ready to build a resilient foundation on AWS, without sacrificing velocity. The AWS SRB combines foundational best practices with guidance that is tailored to common startup workloads. It also outlines the guardrails that startups need in order to rapidly scale on AWS with confidence.

Scope of guidance

The AWS SRB is aligned with the resilience lifecycle framework. It helps startups implement resiliency foundations, with minimal development effort, as they deploy their first applications on AWS.

This document does not comprehensively cover all resiliency resources and tools available in AWS. Startups operating at a later stage of maturity should review additional resources for a comprehensive understanding of resilience best practices on AWS. For example, the AWS Well-Architected Framework is a helpful next resource. It can help you build a secure, high-performing, resilient, and efficient infrastructure for your applications and workloads. Assess your adherence to these best practices by using the AWS Well-Architected Tool in your AWS account.

Shared responsibility model

Resilience is a shared responsibility between AWS and its customers, according to the shared responsibility model. AWS is responsible for resilience of the underlying cloud infrastructure that runs AWS services. Customers are responsible for the resilience of the AWS services that they deploy in the AWS Cloud. Implementing the resilience guidance prescribed in this document falls under the customer's responsibility when using AWS. By following best practices for resilience, customers can build reliable applications on AWS that recover gracefully from disruptions.