Well-Architected

Run AWS Well-Architected Framework reviews against the AWS account you have connected to CloudSmart — without leaving the app. Define workloads, answer the review questions pillar by pillar, watch the risk counts move, and record milestones as you improve.

Reviews run against the active account, so switch accounts to work on a different one.

Before you start

Well-Architected uses the access role created by the CloudSmart setup template. If that account isn't connected yet, the page tells you to deploy the onboarding template — see Getting started. Once the account is verified, workloads and lenses load normally.

Workloads

The Workloads table shows each workload with its lens count, its HIGH, MEDIUM, and unanswered risk counts, improvement status, and last update.

Create one with + New workload:

• Workload name and description.
• Environment — production or preproduction.
• Review owner — the person or group accountable for the review.
• AWS regions — comma-separated, e.g. us-east-1, eu-west-1.
• Lenses — one or more lenses to review the workload against.

Select a workload to Review it, Edit lenses, or Delete it. Deleting a workload also deletes its review and can't be undone.

Lenses on a workload

Edit lenses is where you associate and disassociate lenses. Tick the lenses you want the workload reviewed against and save — newly ticked lenses are associated, unticked ones are disassociated. The list covers everything available to the account: AWS official lenses, your own custom lenses, and lenses shared with you.

Running a review

Opening a review shows the lens's pillars, each with its risk counts. Select a pillar to work through its questions.

Expand a question to see its choices, tick the ones that apply to your workload, and Save. The question's risk is recalculated on save and the pillar counts update, so you can see the review improve as you answer. Questions are paged — work through a page, then move to the next.

Milestones and reports

• New milestone records a named snapshot of the review as it stands, so you can show progress over time.
• Download report generates the lens review report as a PDF. Report on the current state, or pick a milestone to report the review as it was at that point.

Custom lenses

The Lenses card has three tabs: AWS official, My lenses, and Shared with me.

From My lenses you can:

• Create lens — build a lens with your own pillars, questions, choices, improvement plans, and risk rules, then import it into the account.
• Publish — publish a draft so it can be used and shared. Each publish creates a lens version.
• Share — share a published lens with other AWS accounts by their 12-digit account IDs. Results are reported per account.
• Shares — see who a lens is shared with and revoke any share.
• Delete — remove a custom lens you own.

When someone shares a lens with you, the invitation appears under Shared with me. Accept it and the lens becomes available to associate with your workloads; Reject it to decline.

Connect plan and above

Well-Architected is available on the Connect, Plus, and Enterprise plans. See Plans & tiers.