An AWS Well-Architected Review should help you understand how secure, resilient, and high-performing your cloud environment is.
We combine AWS best practices with real-world experience to identify high-risk issues, uncover cost savings, and build an improvement plan for your cloud.
The AWS Well-Architected Review is a structured assessment that aims to provide a clear view of how your cloud architecture supports the six pillars of the AWS Well-Architected Framework.
At SMS, we translate AWS guidance into concrete observations about your cloud environments, identify high-risk issues (HRIS), and explain what they mean in the context of your business and operating model.
Evaluate how your teams operate workloads day to day. We look at deployment practices, monitoring, incident response, and how changes are managed over time.
We identify areas where controls are missing, misconfigured, or overly permissive, and explain how those issues impact risk, compliance, and audit readiness.
We assess whether your infrastructure can recover predictably and whether failure scenarios have been properly considered, especially for workloads with strict uptime or recovery requirements.
We look at compute selection, storage choices, networking design, and scaling behavior. Findings focus on whether resources are sized and configured appropriately for the workload.
We identify cost savings opportunities such as right-sizing, service selection, and architectural adjustments, while ensuring recommendations remain cost-effective.
We review scaling behavior, data retention, and service usage to identify ways to reduce unnecessary consumption while maintaining required performance and resilience.
Many organizations can run an AWS Well-Architected Review. Few can turn the results into clear, actionable guidance that teams trust and use. We position our AWS Well Architected Review consulting services around delivery quality and follow-through.
You receive a detailed report covering all six pillars of the AWS Well-Architected Framework review. Each section explains what was reviewed, what was observed, and how the workload currently aligns with AWS guidance.
Each pillar includes scored results with clear explanations of what drove those scores. We explain the underlying architectural or operational factors so teams understand where risk exists and why it matters.
Findings are translated into a prioritized set of recommendations. Each item includes estimated effort and expected impact, helping teams weigh trade-offs between cost savings, risk reduction, and delivery timelines.
We provide a roadmap that sequences recommended changes over time. The roadmap outlines dependencies, suggested timelines, and resourcing considerations.
You receive architecture diagrams showing the current state and proposed changes where applicable. These diagrams help teams visualize recommended adjustments to cloud architecture.
When remediation includes implementation, we deliver Infrastructure as Code (IaC) modules, along with supporting documentation. This ensures changes are repeatable, auditable, and easier to maintain across cloud environments.
We work with technical and business stakeholders to capture how your environment is used today, what success looks like, and where current challenges exist. This context ensures the assessment reflects real requirements.
Still working closely with your stakeholders, we evaluate the workload against all six pillars of the AWS Well-Architected Framework. The assessment examines architecture decisions, configurations, and operational practices across cloud environments.
Observed risks, gaps, and improvement opportunities are documented in clear language. We highlight high risk issues and explain how they relate to the six pillars. Each finding is tied back to specific architectural or procedural factors.
Recommendations are organized by priority and impact. We identify quick wins that can be addressed with minimal effort, alongside larger changes that require planning and coordination.
A structured roadmap sequences the recommended actions over time. This roadmap outlines suggested timelines, dependencies, and resource considerations, supporting short-term improvements and longer-term changes .
Full remediation addresses all critical and high-priority recommendations identified. We work directly within your environment to implement changes across architecture, security, operations, and cost controls.
For organizations seeking long-term maintainability, we codify remediation work using Infrastructure as Code. This ensures improvements are consistent, repeatable, and easier to manage over time.
Security hardening focuses on implementing the security-related recommendations. We apply AWS best practices in a way that reflects how your workloads are used and managed.
Cost optimization remediation targets inefficiencies identified during the review. We apply changes that improve cost-effectiveness without undermining reliability or performance.
At SMS, we bring structure, clarity, and delivery discipline to every AWS Well-Architected Framework assessment we run.
We help you understand where your cloud architecture stands today, identify high-risk issues before they become problems, and map a path toward a more secure, high-performing, resilient, and efficient environment. When you are ready, we stay with you to implement the changes that matter.
If you want an architected partner who can assess, explain, and execute, SMS is ready to help.
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The AWS Well-Architected Framework is a set of best practices AWS uses to evaluate cloud architecture across six pillars: operational excellence, security, reliability, performance efficiency, cost optimization, and sustainability. It provides a consistent approach to reviewing cloud environments and identifying areas where design or operational choices introduce risk, inefficiency, or unnecessary cost.
An AWS Well-Architected Framework assessment uses this model to identify gaps, highlight high risk issues, and guide improvement decisions.
Improving cloud architecture starts with understanding how your current environment performs against established best practices. An AWS Well-Architected Review helps identify where architecture decisions no longer align with performance requirements, security expectations, or cost targets.
From there, improvement typically involves a combination of configuration changes, architectural adjustments, improving processes and procedures, and in some cases codifying infrastructure to support long-term consistency. SMS’s AWS Well-Architected Review consulting aims to support this process from assessment through remediation, helping teams move from insight to execution.
A cloud architecture review provides visibility into risks and inefficiencies that are often hidden during day-to-day operations. Benefits include clearer understanding of security posture, improved reliability, identified cost savings, and better alignment between cloud environments and business goals.
For many organizations, the review also provides a shared improvement plan that technical teams and leadership can use to prioritize work over the short and long term.
Best practices in cloud design exist to reduce failure risk, control costs, and improve operational consistency. Ignoring them often leads to fragile systems, unpredictable spend, and environments that are difficult to support as they grow.
Following best practices helps ensure cloud environments remain secure, resilient, and cost effective as requirements change. Our AWS Well-Architected Review consulting engagement helps teams understand where best practices are being met and where corrective action is needed.
A Well-Architected Review enhances performance by examining whether workloads are properly sized, scaled, and configured for how they are actually used. This includes reviewing compute choices, storage patterns, networking design, and scaling behavior.
By identifying bottlenecks and misaligned design decisions, the review helps teams build more responsive, resilient, and efficient infrastructure that meets performance expectations without unnecessary complexity or cost.