Applying the AWS Well-Architected Pillars to On-Prem Review
Now that stakeholders are aligned and migration preparation is underway, it’s time to apply the AWS Well-Architected Framework directly to existing on-premises workloads. This structured review allows organizations to surface weaknesses before workloads ever touch AWS, reducing risk and increasing confidence in the migration path.
Operational Excellence
On-prem environments often lack the automation, monitoring, and continuous improvement loops common in the cloud.
- Evaluate existing monitoring and alerting systems.
- Identify manual processes that could be automated.
- Assess whether feedback loops exist for incidents and performance reviews.
Security
Security is frequently the biggest gap uncovered in on-prem reviews.
- Check whether identity and access management (IAM) is granular or overly broad.
- Evaluate data protection practices—encryption, backups, key management.
- Assess incident response maturity.
Reliability
Traditional infrastructure may rely on single points of failure.
- Review redundancy in compute, storage, and networking.
- Test backup and recovery processes against RTO/RPO goals.
- Evaluate change management practices for their impact on availability.
Performance Efficiency
On-prem resources are often over-provisioned or underutilized.
- Audit current capacity planning and utilization metrics.
- Assess whether workloads scale with business needs or remain fixed.
- Consider opportunities for right-sizing when workloads move to AWS.
Cost Optimization
On-premises cost visibility is usually poor.
- Identify all costs associated with infrastructure: hardware, software, facilities, staff.
- Assess whether cost allocation mechanisms exist for different departments or workloads.
- Evaluate whether costs are tied to business outcomes or simply operational overhead.
(Optional) Sustainability
Although not always included, the sixth pillar—sustainability—can also be applied. Organizations may review data center energy efficiency, hardware refresh cycles, and environmental impact.
Why This Matters
By applying the Well-Architected pillars to on-premises systems, organizations:
- Highlight critical gaps in security, reliability, and cost controls.
- Prioritize workloads that are ready for migration versus those requiring remediation.
- Develop a roadmap that aligns technical readiness with business value.
What’s Next
In Part 4, we’ll explore the AWS Migration Readiness Assessment (MRA)—a structured tool that helps organizations evaluate people, process, and technology gaps, and build an actionable roadmap for migration.
📘 Read: The Migration Readiness Assessment