What is the AWS Well-Architected Framework?

The AWS Well-Architected Framework is a comprehensive set of best practices designed to assist cloud architects in building and maintaining reliable, secure, efficient, and cost-effective systems on the AWS platform. It provides a structured approach to evaluate architectures for alignment with best practices, promoting a consistent and repeatable way of improving cloud architectures.

This framework is organized around five key pillars: operational excellence, security, reliability, performance efficiency, and cost optimization. Each pillar provides guidance on how to implement and manage systems effectively while ensuring that certain principles are adhered to, which enables businesses to achieve their desired outcomes in the cloud.

The other options do not accurately capture the essence of the framework. Managing costs is an aspect of cloud governance but does not encompass the broader approach that includes security, reliability, and operational efficiency. Monitoring services are certainly important in managing cloud infrastructure, but the Well-Architected Framework is more about design best practices than simply monitoring. While auditing system performance is a valuable practice, it is not the primary focus of the Well-Architected Framework, which emphasizes comprehensive design principles rather than just performance checks.