This topic describes how to use Well-Architected Tool.
What is Well-Architected Tool?
Cloud governance is divided into three stages: learning, measurement, and optimization. Cloud Governance Center (CGC) provides Well-Architected Tool to help you implement measurements based on your business requirements in your product lifecycle. Well-Architected Tool provides the following services:
● Assist in decision recording.
● Provide suggestions on improving workloads based on best practices.
● Assist in making workloads more reliable, secure, efficient, and economical.
You can use Well-Architected Tool to record and measure your workloads based on the best practices defined in the Alibaba Cloud Well-Architected Framework. These best practices are developed by solution architects based on their years of experience in building solutions for various enterprises. Well-Architected Tool provides a consistent method for measuring a system architecture and provides guidance for the cloud architecture design of enterprises. This helps enterprises build well-architected frameworks in the cloud. Well-Architected Tool is intended for users involved in technology and product development, such as chief technology officers (CTOs), architects, developers, and members of operations teams.
Create a workload
A cloud workload is a set of cloud resources and related features that support the operation of business systems. A workload may include servers, virtual machines (VMs), containers, networks, and databases based on the complexity of the business.
Log on to Well-Architected Tool.
On the Workload page, click Create.
In the Create Workload panel, configure the following parameters: Workload Name, Description, Review Owner, Environment, Add Tag (Optional), and Apply Questionnaire.
By default, Alibaba Cloud Well-Architected Lens is selected for evaluation.
Click OK.
After the workload is created, you can view, edit, and delete the workload based on your business requirements.
Evaluate a workload
On the Workload page, find the workload that you want to manage and click its name.
On the details page of the workload, click the Review Report tab. In the upper-right corner of the Review Report tab, click Start Evaluation or Continue Evaluation.
Fill in the evaluation questionnaire.
The questions in the evaluation questionnaire provide multiple best practices from the following dimensions: Security, Reliability, Cost Optimization, Operational Excellence, and Performance Efficiency.
Read the questions and determine whether the questions apply to your workload.
If a question does not apply to your workload, turn on Inapplicable Question and select a reason from the Reasons for drop-down list to specify why this question is inapplicable.
If a question applies to your workload, select the best practices that your workload follows. If your workload does not follow any best practices, select None. For a best practice that does not apply to your workload, you can mark it and select a reason to specify why this best practice is inapplicable.
NoteClick the question mark icon next to each best practice to view the details of the best practice.
Click Save and Exit.
You do not need to complete an evaluation questionnaire at one time. You can fill in part of the questionnaire and save it for later modifications.
View an evaluation report
Well-Architected Tool identifies high-level and medium-level risks based on the services provided by Alibaba Cloud Well-Architected Framework and the best practices that you select.
Go to the details page of the workload that you want to manage. On the Review Report tab of the details page, view the risks.
Find the risk that you want to manage and click Governance Recommendations to view the suggestions on the best practices of the risk.
Click the name of the risk, modify the selected best practices, and add remarks to record the improvement.
Click Save and Exit to update the status of the workload.
Download an evaluation report
Go to the details page of the workload that you want to manage. In the Well-architected Tool Review Report section on the right side of the details page, click Download Report to download the evaluation report in the PDF format.
Save a milestone
Save the evaluation of a workload in the current phase by using a milestone. You can save multiple milestones for a workload to continuously record the evaluations and improvement progress of the workload.
Go to the details page of the workload that you want to manage. In the upper-right corner of the Review Report tab, click Save Milestone.
In the Save Milestone dialog box, configure the Milestone Name parameter and click OK.
View a milestone
Go to the details page of the workload that you want to manage and click the Milestone tab.
Find the milestone that you want to manage and click its name to view the evaluation history.
In the upper-right corner of the milestone details page, click View review to view the answering details of the evaluation questionnaire.
Update a questionnaire
Alibaba Cloud Well-Architected Lens and other questionnaires provided by Well-Architected Tool are updated based on the release of new services, improvements to existing cloud best practices, and addition of new best practices. If a new questionnaire version is available, Well-Architected Tool sends a notification to inform you. You can choose whether to update the questionnaire to the latest version based on your business requirements.
Go to the details page of the workload that you want to manage. In the upper-right corner of the Review Report tab, click Update lens version.
On the Update lens version page, view the differences between the previous and new versions of the questionnaire.
If you decide to update the questionnaire, you must specify a milestone name, select I understand and accept these changes, and then click Confirm to create a milestone.
This milestone is used to save the evaluation status before the questionnaire is updated. You can use this milestone for future reference.
When you continue to evaluate the workload after the questionnaire is updated, the icon is displayed next to the risks raised after the update. This helps you locate the new risks and re-evaluate your workload.