Overview
This paper describes the AWS Well-Architected Internet of Things (IoT) Lens, a collection of customer-proven best practices for designing well-architected IoT workloads. The IoT Lens contains insights that AWS has gathered from real-world case studies, and you will quickly learn the key design elements of well-architected IoT workloads along with recommendations for improvement. The intended readers of the document are IT architects, developers, and team members who build and operate IoT systems.
How to use the lens checklist
Use this Lens when you want to review the IoT workload. This Lens, however, does not replace the AWS Well-Architected Framework. Instead, it is a supplemental content that clarifies how to interpret and adopt the generic best practices of the Framework into the IoT workload designs. Therefore, we still recommend you to read the Well-Architected Framework whitepaper for more general yet comprehensive guidance for your new architecture designs, or for architecture reviews of existing IoT workload on premises or on AWS.
To conduct a workload review, first of all, read this document. Second, check whether your workload design follows each of the best practices, and lastly, record which best practices your workload should follow for further improvement. After the review, you will have a list of best practices that shows the workload is well-architected, or that it needs improvement. For the well-architected architectural components, share your knowledge among your teams to amplify them. For the best practices that your workload does not follow yet, treat them as technical debt and risks to your business. By adhering to your team’s risk management process, you need to acknowledge them as risks, assess the likelihood and size of impact, examine solutions, implement solutions, and monitor the results. Since this Lens does not only provide the best practices but also recommends corresponding solutions, you can use them while exploring risk mitigation solutions.
Custom lens availability
Custom lenses extend the best practice guidance provided by AWS Well-Architected Tool. AWS WA Tool allows you to create your own custom lenses, or to use lenses created by others that have been shared with you.
To determine if a custom lens is available for the lens described in this whitepaper, reach out to your Technical Account Manager (TAM), Solutions Architect (SA), or AWS Support.
