Framework First
Stage 04 · DeliverintermediateCloud & DevOps

AWS Solutions Architect Thinking

Think like an AWS solutions architect: evaluate trade-offs across reliability, cost, security, and performance — and defend your design decisions.

5 hours 7 modules

The framework

AWS Well-Architected Framework (6 Pillars)

Six pillars — Operational Excellence, Security, Reliability, Performance Efficiency, Cost Optimisation, Sustainability — used as a structured trade-off decision engine.

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How you'll learn

Text-first. Practice-heavy. No video lectures.

15-minute text lessons

Short, dense reading you can finish between meetings — not hour-long video lectures.

Hands-on exercises

Apply the framework to a realistic scenario, right in the module where you learned it.

Quizzes & assessments

Check your judgment, not just your memory — most questions are situational.

Certificate on completion

Finish a course and get a shareable certificate, automatically.

About this course

Learn to think like an AWS Solutions Architect by applying the six pillars of the Well-Architected Framework to real-world design problems.

The project: Multi-Tier Web Application Architecture

Design a production-grade, highly available multi-tier web application on AWS. Document trade-off decisions across all six Well-Architected pillars.

  1. 1

    The Well-Architected Framework: 6 Pillars as a Decision Engine

    30 min· Knowledge check
    Free preview
  2. 2

    Designing for Reliability: Multi-AZ, Auto Scaling & Disaster Recovery

    30 min· Knowledge check· 📚 1 resource
  3. 3

    Security & Cost: The Two Pillars Everyone Skips

    Why security and cost optimization are the pillars most designs fail — and the mechanisms that keep them non-negotiable.

    22 min· Knowledge check
  4. 4

    Performance Efficiency & Sustainability

    Choosing the right compute, storage, and database for each workload — and why sustainability is an architecture concern.

    20 min· Knowledge check
  5. 5

    The Six Design Principles of Cloud Architecture

    Elasticity, decoupling, automation and the other principles that separate cloud-native design from lifted-and-shifted thinking.

    24 min· Knowledge check
  6. 6

    Running a Well-Architected Review

    The review process itself: how to scope it, run it, and turn findings into a prioritised remediation plan.

    20 min· Knowledge check· 📚 1 resource
  7. 7

    Capstone: Architect a Three-Tier Web Application

    Apply every pillar and principle to a realistic brief: design, defend, and cost a production-grade architecture.

    45 min· Knowledge check