> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://karansingh.gitbook.io/ccpnotes/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://karansingh.gitbook.io/ccpnotes/architecting-on-the-cloud/well-architected-framework.md).
# Well-Architected Framework & Best Practices
## General Guiding Principles:
* **Stop guessing capacity**: Might end up sitting on expensive idle resources or dealing with the performance implications of limited capacity.
* **Test systems at production scale**: Can create a production-scale test environment on demand.
* **Automate to make architectural experimentation easier**: Automation allows you to create and replicate your workloads at low cost and avoid the expense of manual effort.
* **Allow for evolutionary architectures**: Allow for systems to evolve over time so that businesses can take advantage of innovations as a standard practice.
* **Drive architectures using data**: Make fact-based decisions on how to improve your workload.
* **Improve through game days**: Test how your architecture and processes perform by regularly scheduling game days to simulate events in production.
## General Design Principles:
* **Be scalable -** Vertically and horizontally.
* **Disposable resources** - Servers should be easily disposable and easily configured.
* **Automation** - Serverless, auto-scaling, etc.
* **Loose coupling** - Break a monolith down into smaller, loosely coupled components so a failure doesn't affect other components.
* **Services, not servers** - Using managed services and going serverless rather than just using EC2 instances.
## Best Practices:
* **Decouple your components** - Also called loose coupling.
* **Think parallel** - Experiment different architectures in parallel.
* **Implement elasticity** - Can scale in and scale out to meet the demand without any human intervention.
* **Design for failure** - Being pessimistic.