Introduction

Assessments supports a wide range of out-of-the-box assessment frameworks that are regularly updated, including best-practice frameworks for industry-leading cloud providers like AWS, GCP, and Azure.

These frameworks help users save time and ensure coverage and consistency across different customers and workloads.

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Note:

The latest version of the AWS framework supported by the platform is October 2023.

Azure Well Architected Framework

The Azure Well-Architected Framework is a set of guiding tenets that can be used to improve the quality of a workload. The framework consists of five pillars of architectural excellence: Reliability, Security, Cost optimization, Operational excellence, and Performance efficiency. These pillars help produce a high quality, stable, and efficient cloud architecture.

Source: Microsoft Azure Well-Architected Framework - Azure Well-Architected Framework | Microsoft Learn_

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Note: As of November 2023, Assessments now supports the Azure Well Architected Framework.

AWS Well Architected Framework

AWS Well-Architected helps cloud architects build secure, high-performing, resilient, and efficient infrastructure for a variety of applications and workloads. Built around six pillars—operational excellence, security, reliability, performance efficiency, cost optimization, and sustainability—AWS Well-Architected provides a consistent approach for customers and partners to evaluate architectures and implement scalable designs.

Source: https://aws.amazon.com/architecture/well-architected/?wa-lens-whitepapers.sort-by=item.additionalFields.sortDate&wa-lens-whitepapers.sort-order=desc&wa-guidance-whitepapers.sort-by=item.additionalFields.sortDate&wa-guidance-whitepapers.sort-order=desc

GCP Architecture Framework

The Google Cloud Architecture Framework is a set of recommendations and best practices designed to help architects, developers, administrators, and other cloud practitioners design and operate a secure, efficient, resilient, high-performing, and cost-effective cloud topology in the Google Cloud Platform (GCP).

The framework applies to applications built for the cloud, workloads migrated from on-premises to Google Cloud, hybrid cloud deployments, and multi-cloud environments. It is continuously updated to reflect the expanding capabilities of Google Cloud, industry best practices, community knowledge, and user feedback.

This framework is organized into six categories, also known as pillars:

1. System Design
2. Operational Excellence
3. Security, Privacy, and Compliance
4. Reliability
5. Cost Optimization
6. Performance Optimization

Source: https://cloud.google.com/architecture/framework

Best Practices and Policies for Assessments Frameworks

As noted above, the out-of-the-box frameworks supported for Assessments are:

• AWS Well-Architected Framework
• Azure Well-Architected Framework
• GCP Cloud Architecture Framework

The number of best practices and policies mapped to each framework for various cloud providers are different. Each cloud provider has their own set of categories, so the specific questions available for each framework vary.

Refer to the points below to view the details for each supported cloud provider framework:

AWS Framework - Best Practices

Azure Framework - Best Practices

GCP Framework - Best Practices