My journey to the cloud

Where it all started

In the late 90s I got my first PC and turned it into an Ubuntu server with Apache. I forwarded port 80 in my ISP NAT router and tried to reach the default website from within my own home network. It worked; I could reach it! 😄 😄
Little did I know that it wasn't available from the outside world...

Getting into IT

A step in time. I had my fair share of failed studies and jobs and was at a turning point in life. I needed to do something, I couldn't go on like this...
As you do, as you need to overthink your life... I went to the pub.
There I bumped into an old colleague and talked about where to go next. And there he spoke the legendary words; "You like computers, don't you? Why don't you join us in IT?"
Well, if 'IT' was working with computers... Why not...
I lent myself a job and I worked myself up from service desk to system administrator and later solutions architect.

Learn about cloud

Of course, I heard about cloud during those years. But I didn't pay that much attention, enough fun on-prem. Till more and more customers were 'going to the cloud'. Halfway the 10s I toke the leap and googled 'how to architect in the cloud'.
I learned a lot and stumbled upon the Well Architected Framework. Something that back then was a pure AWS affair.
What stood out immediately was the principle "stop guessing capacity". Being in pre-sales architect at the time that could be considered my fulltime job... The Well Architected Framework had me. I read it cover to cover.

Brief History of the Well Architected Framework

The start

Like many architects before them, at AWS the architects believed that capturing and sharing best practices leads to better outcomes. In 2012 Philip "Fitz" Fitzsimons and his team started an initiative called Well-Architected. A push to share the best practices for architecting in the cloud.

Well Architected Framework

In October 2015 Jeff Barr announced the Well Architect Framework with his blog "Are you Well-Architected?".
The framework at that moment wat based around four pillars:

• Security
• Reliability
• Performance Efficiency
• Cost Optimization

Each pillar represents a part of a set of design principles.
The effort came as an answer to the request from customers to be more prescriptive in there advise.

Well-Architected Review

Soon after the introduction AWS Solution Architect started assessing workloads against the framework. In September the Well-Architected Review became an official part of Enterprise Support.

5th pillar

Customers asked more guidance on the operation of the workloads. That's why Fitz in October announce a 5th pillar. The pillar of Operational Excellence with design principles around monitoring and continual improvement.

6th pillar

On the global trend of taking better care of the planet we life on, at Re:Invent 2022 Werner Vogels announce the 6th pillar. The Sustainability pillar, containing the principles about reducing carbon footprint.

Where I am today

The Well-Architected Framework didn't let me get away. Today I'm technical leading a stream of AWS professionals for an AWS partner. And I'm AWS Solutions Architect Professional certified and entitled to run Well-Architected Review for our customers.