IoT Lens - AWS Well-Architected Framework

Publication date: December 2019 (Document Revisions)

Abstract

This whitepaper describes the AWS IoT Lens for the AWS Well-Architected Framework, which enables customers to review and improve their cloud-based architectures and better understand the business impact of their design decisions. The document describes general design principles, as well as specific best practices and guidance for the five pillars of the Well-Architected Framework.

Introduction

The AWS Well-Architected Framework helps you understand the pros and cons of the decisions you make when building systems on AWS. Using the Framework allows you to learn architectural best practices for designing and operating reliable, secure, efficient, and cost-effective systems in the cloud. The Framework provides a way for you to consistently measure your architectures against best practices and identify areas for improvement. We believe that having well-architected systems greatly increases the likelihood of business success.

In this “Lens” we focus on how to design, deploy, and architect your IoT workloads (Internet of Things) in the AWS Cloud. To implement a well-architected IoT application, you must follow well-architected principles, starting from the procurement of connected physical assets (things) to the eventual decommissioning of those same assets in a secure, reliable, and automated fashion. In addition to AWS Cloud best practices, this document also articulates the impact, considerations, and recommendations for connecting physical assets to the internet.

This document only covers IoT specific workload details from the Well-Architected Framework. We recommend that you read the AWS Well-Architected Framework whitepaper and consider the best practices and questions for other lenses.

This document is intended for those in technology roles, such as chief technology officers (CTOs), architects, developers, embedded engineers, and operations team members. After reading this document, you will understand AWS best practices and strategies for IoT applications.