Cloud Architecture Lab

1

Well-Architected Framework

30 minutes

Objective: Understand the six pillars of the AWS Well-Architected Framework and how they apply across cloud providers.

The Six Pillars

1. Operational Excellence

Run and monitor systems to deliver business value. Automate changes, respond to events, define standards.

2. Security

Protect information, systems, and assets. Identity, detection, infrastructure protection, data protection.

3. Reliability

Recover from failures, meet demand. Foundations, change management, failure management.

4. Performance Efficiency

Use computing resources efficiently. Selection, review, monitoring, trade-offs.

5. Cost Optimization

Avoid unnecessary costs. Expenditure awareness, cost-effective resources, matching supply and demand.

6. Sustainability

Minimize environmental impact. Region selection, efficient workloads, data lifecycle.

Tasks

Review each pillar and identify which applies to your current projects
List 3 best practices from the Security pillar
Compare AWS Well-Architected to Azure's framework (similar concepts)
Identify potential cost optimization opportunities in a sample architecture

2

High Availability Architectures

40 minutes

Objective: Design fault-tolerant architectures using multiple availability zones and regions.

Multi-AZ Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ AWS Region │ │ ┌─────────────────────────┐ ┌─────────────────────────┐ │ │ │ Availability Zone A │ │ Availability Zone B │ │ │ │ ┌─────────────────┐ │ │ ┌─────────────────┐ │ │ │ │ │ Public Subnet │ │ │ │ Public Subnet │ │ │ │ │ │ ┌───────────┐ │ │ │ │ ┌───────────┐ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ALB │◄─┼────┼────┼──┼─►│ ALB │ │ │ │ │ │ │ └───────────┘ │ │ │ │ └───────────┘ │ │ │ │ │ └─────────────────┘ │ │ └─────────────────┘ │ │ │ │ ┌─────────────────┐ │ │ ┌─────────────────┐ │ │ │ │ │ Private Subnet │ │ │ │ Private Subnet │ │ │ │ │ │ ┌───────────┐ │ │ │ │ ┌───────────┐ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ EC2 │ │ │ │ │ │ EC2 │ │ │ │ │ │ │ └───────────┘ │ │ │ │ └───────────┘ │ │ │ │ │ │ ┌───────────┐ │ │ │ │ ┌───────────┐ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ RDS Pri │◄─┼────┼────┼──┼─►│ RDS Stby │ │ │ │ │ │ │ └───────────┘ │ │ │ │ └───────────┘ │ │ │ │ │ └─────────────────┘ │ │ └─────────────────┘ │ │ │ └─────────────────────────┘ └─────────────────────────┘ │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Key Concepts: Multi-AZ deployments provide automatic failover. RDS Multi-AZ maintains a synchronous standby replica in a different AZ.

Multi-Region Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Route 53 (DNS) │ │ Latency-based / Failover Routing │ └──────────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────────────┘ │ ┌──────────────────────────┴──────────────────────────┐ │ │ │ ▼ ▼ ▼ ┌───────────────┐ ┌───────────────┐ ┌───────────────┐ │ US-EAST-1 │ │ EU-WEST-1 │ │ AP-SOUTH-1 │ │ (Primary) │ │ (Secondary) │ │ (Secondary) │ │ ┌───────────┐ │ │ ┌───────────┐ │ │ ┌───────────┐ │ │ │ ALB │ │ │ │ ALB │ │ │ │ ALB │ │ │ └───────────┘ │ │ └───────────┘ │ │ └───────────┘ │ │ ┌───────────┐ │ │ ┌───────────┐ │ │ ┌───────────┐ │ │ │ Aurora │◄┼────────┼─│ Replica │ │ │ │ Replica │ │ │ │ Primary │ │ │ └───────────┘ │ │ └───────────┘ │ │ └───────────┘ │ └───────────────┘ └───────────────┘ └───────────────┘

Tasks

Identify single points of failure in a given architecture
Calculate RPO (Recovery Point Objective) and RTO (Recovery Time Objective)
Design a Multi-AZ web application architecture
Explain Active-Active vs Active-Passive multi-region strategies

3

Microservices & Serverless Patterns

35 minutes

Objective: Understand microservices decomposition and serverless event-driven architectures.

Microservices Pattern

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ API Gateway │ └───────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────────┘ │ ┌───────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────┐ │ │ │ ▼ ▼ ▼ ┌───────────────┐ ┌───────────────┐ ┌───────────────┐ │ User Service │ │ Order Service │ │Product Service│ │ ┌───────────┐ │ │ ┌───────────┐ │ │ ┌───────────┐ │ │ │ Lambda │ │ │ │ ECS │ │ │ │ Lambda │ │ │ └───────────┘ │ │ └───────────┘ │ │ └───────────┘ │ │ ┌───────────┐ │ │ ┌───────────┐ │ │ ┌───────────┐ │ │ │ DynamoDB │ │ │ │ Aurora │ │ │ │ DynamoDB │ │ │ └───────────┘ │ │ └───────────┘ │ │ └───────────┘ │ └───────────────┘ └───────────────┘ └───────────────┘ │ │ │ └─────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┘ ▼ ┌───────────────┐ │ Event Bus │ │ (EventBridge)│ └───────────────┘

Serverless Event-Driven Architecture

User Request │ ▼ ┌─────────┐ ┌─────────┐ ┌─────────┐ │ API │───►│ Lambda │───►│ SQS │ │ Gateway │ │ Process │ │ Queue │ └─────────┘ └─────────┘ └────┬────┘ │ ▼ ┌─────────┐ ┌─────────┐ ┌─────────┐ │ SNS │◄───│ Lambda │◄───│ Lambda │ │ Topic │ │ Notify │ │ Worker │ └────┬────┘ └─────────┘ └─────────┘ │ ┌──────────┼──────────┐ ▼ ▼ ▼ ┌────────┐ ┌────────┐ ┌────────┐ │ Email │ │ SMS │ │ Slack │ └────────┘ └────────┘ └────────┘

Monolith vs Microservices

Aspect	Monolith	Microservices
Deployment	Single unit	Independent services
Scaling	Scale entire app	Scale individual services
Technology	Single stack	Polyglot (multiple stacks)
Complexity	Simpler initially	Higher operational complexity
Team Structure	Centralized	Decentralized (teams own services)

Tasks

Identify service boundaries for an e-commerce application
Design an event-driven order processing workflow
Compare Lambda functions vs containerized services (ECS/EKS)
Document inter-service communication patterns (sync vs async)

4

Multi-Cloud & Hybrid Architectures

35 minutes

Objective: Understand strategies for deploying across multiple cloud providers and hybrid environments.

Cloud Provider Comparison

AWS

Market leader, broadest services

Azure

Enterprise, hybrid strength

GCP

Data/ML, Kubernetes native

Service Type	AWS	Azure	GCP
Compute	EC2	Virtual Machines	Compute Engine
Serverless	Lambda	Functions	Cloud Functions
Containers	ECS/EKS	AKS	GKE
Object Storage	S3	Blob Storage	Cloud Storage
SQL Database	RDS/Aurora	SQL Database	Cloud SQL
NoSQL	DynamoDB	Cosmos DB	Firestore/Bigtable

Hybrid Architecture

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ On-Premises Data Center │ │ ┌─────────────┐ ┌─────────────┐ ┌─────────────┐ │ │ │ Legacy │ │ Database │ │ AD/LDAP │ │ │ │ Apps │ │ Server │ │ Server │ │ │ └─────────────┘ └─────────────┘ └─────────────┘ │ └──────────────────────────┬───────────────────────────────────┘ │ ┌────────────────┴────────────────┐ │ VPN / Direct Connect / ExpressRoute └────────────────┬────────────────┘ │ ┌──────────────────────────┴───────────────────────────────────┐ │ Cloud │ │ ┌─────────────┐ ┌─────────────┐ ┌─────────────┐ │ │ │ Modern Web │ │ API │ │ Data │ │ │ │ Apps │ │ Gateway │ │ Lake │ │ │ └─────────────┘ └─────────────┘ └─────────────┘ │ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Hybrid Use Cases: Data sovereignty requirements, gradual migration, latency-sensitive workloads, regulatory compliance, and cost optimization for predictable workloads.

Tasks

Identify equivalent services across AWS, Azure, and GCP
List advantages and risks of multi-cloud strategy
Design a hybrid architecture connecting on-premises to cloud
Evaluate tools for multi-cloud management (Terraform, Kubernetes)

Cloud Comparison Tool

5

Infrastructure as Code (IaC)

40 minutes

Objective: Understand IaC principles and tools for reproducible cloud infrastructure.

Terraform Example

# AWS VPC with Terraform
resource "aws_vpc" "main" {
  cidr_block           = "10.0.0.0/16"
  enable_dns_hostnames = true
  enable_dns_support   = true

  tags = {
    Name        = "production-vpc"
    Environment = "prod"
    ManagedBy   = "terraform"
  }
}

resource "aws_subnet" "public" {
  count             = 2
  vpc_id            = aws_vpc.main.id
  cidr_block        = cidrsubnet(aws_vpc.main.cidr_block, 8, count.index)
  availability_zone = data.aws_availability_zones.available.names[count.index]

  map_public_ip_on_launch = true
}
                

CloudFormation Example

# AWS CloudFormation YAML
AWSTemplateFormatVersion: '2010-09-09'
Description: 'Production VPC Stack'

Resources:
  ProductionVPC:
    Type: AWS::EC2::VPC
    Properties:
      CidrBlock: '10.0.0.0/16'
      EnableDnsHostnames: true
      EnableDnsSupport: true
      Tags:
        - Key: Name
          Value: production-vpc

  PublicSubnet:
    Type: AWS::EC2::Subnet
    Properties:
      VpcId: !Ref ProductionVPC
      CidrBlock: '10.0.1.0/24'
      MapPublicIpOnLaunch: true
                

IaC Tools Comparison

Tool	Provider	Language	Best For
Terraform	HashiCorp	HCL	Multi-cloud
CloudFormation	AWS	JSON/YAML	AWS-native
ARM Templates	Microsoft	JSON	Azure-native
Pulumi	Pulumi	Python/TS/Go	Developer-friendly
CDK	AWS	Python/TS/Java	AWS programmatic

Tasks

Write a Terraform config for a VPC with 2 subnets
Explain the terraform plan/apply/destroy workflow
Compare declarative vs imperative IaC approaches
Document state management best practices

6

Cost Optimization & FinOps

30 minutes

Objective: Apply cloud financial operations (FinOps) principles to optimize cloud spending.

Cost Optimization Strategies

Right-Sizing

Analyze utilization and resize instances. Many workloads are over-provisioned by 50%+.

Reserved Capacity

1-3 year commitments for predictable workloads save 30-72% vs on-demand.

Spot/Preemptible Instances

Use spare capacity for fault-tolerant workloads. Save up to 90%.

Auto-Scaling

Scale down during off-peak. Schedule non-production shutdowns.

Storage Tiering

Move infrequently accessed data to cheaper storage classes (Glacier, Cool Blob).

Cost Analysis Example

Monthly Cloud Bill Breakdown ════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════ Compute (EC2/VMs) ████████████████████████ $4,200 (42%) Database (RDS/SQL) ██████████████ $2,800 (28%) Storage (S3/Blob) ████████ $1,600 (16%) Network (Data Transfer) ████ $800 (8%) Other Services ███ $600 (6%) ─────────── Total: $10,000/mo ════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════ Optimization Opportunities: ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ ✓ Right-size 5 over-provisioned instances → -$840/mo │ │ ✓ Reserve 3 production databases → -$980/mo │ │ ✓ Archive cold data to Glacier → -$640/mo │ │ ✓ Use Spot for dev/test workloads → -$420/mo │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Potential Savings: $2,880/mo (29%)

Tasks

Calculate potential savings from reserved vs on-demand pricing
Identify 3 resources that could be right-sized in a sample architecture
Design an auto-scaling policy for a web application
Create a storage lifecycle policy for data archival

Architecture Reflection

Consider the following as you complete this lab:

How would you design a disaster recovery strategy for a critical application?
What factors would influence your choice between serverless and containers?
How do you balance cost optimization with performance requirements?
What governance controls would you implement for a multi-cloud environment?