AWS Solution Architect 101

Scalable and Resilient Architectures for Developers | #LLM #BigData #CloudSeries | Jenny P. earned her Master's degree in Computer Science from the University of Pennsylvania, specializing in Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing.

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Jenny P. - AWS Certified Solutions Architect

9/30/20243 min read

As developers aim to build highly scalable, resilient, and efficient applications, Amazon Web Services (AWS) provides a robust set of tools and services to achieve these goals. In this blog post, I’ll introduce some of the most customizable and widely used AWS architectures to help you design solutions that can handle modern workloads while ensuring high availability and cost-efficiency.

1. Three-Tier Architecture

The Three-Tier Architecture is one of the most fundamental and widely adopted designs in AWS. It divides the application into three logical layers for better scalability, security, and management.

  • Presentation Layer: Hosted on Amazon EC2, AWS Elastic Beanstalk, or AWS Amplify to serve the front-end.

  • Application Layer: Deployed in a secure Auto-Scaling Group behind an Application Load Balancer (ALB).

  • Database Layer: Managed by Amazon RDS (Relational Database Service) or Amazon DynamoDB for high-performance, scalable data storage.

Key Benefits:

  • Separation of concerns improves maintainability.

  • Auto-scaling ensures scalability for varying traffic loads.

  • Managed databases simplify administration.

Example Services:

  • Amazon EC2 + ALB + Amazon RDS (MySQL, PostgreSQL, or Aurora)

  • AWS Lambda + Amazon DynamoDB for serverless deployments

2. Serverless Architecture with AWS Lambda

Serverless architectures have gained immense popularity due to their scalability and cost-efficiency. AWS Lambda enables you to run code without provisioning or managing servers.

Architecture Components:

  • AWS Lambda: Core compute layer that runs your application logic.

  • Amazon API Gateway: Handles HTTP requests and routes them to Lambda functions.

  • Amazon S3: Stores static files like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

  • Amazon DynamoDB: Provides a scalable, NoSQL database for your application data.

Key Benefits:

  • Pay-per-use model reduces costs.

  • High availability and scalability are built-in.

  • No infrastructure management overhead.

Use Case: Event-driven applications, APIs, and microservices.

3. Microservices Architecture on Amazon EKS or ECS

Microservices architectures allow you to break monolithic applications into smaller, independently deployable services. AWS provides tools like Amazon EKS (Elastic Kubernetes Service) and Amazon ECS (Elastic Container Service) for orchestrating containers.

Architecture Components:

  • Amazon EKS/ECS: Manages and scales your containerized workloads.

  • AWS Fargate: Offers serverless compute for containers.

  • Amazon API Gateway: Routes traffic to various microservices.

  • Amazon RDS or DynamoDB: Backend database layer.

  • Amazon CloudWatch: Provides logging and monitoring.

Key Benefits:

  • Independent scaling for each microservice.

  • Improved fault tolerance; failure in one service doesn’t affect others.

  • Seamless CI/CD integration for faster deployments.

Use Case: Complex, large-scale applications requiring modular development.

4. Highly Available Multi-AZ Architecture

Ensuring high availability is critical for business continuity. AWS Multi-AZ (Availability Zone) deployments provide redundancy and fault tolerance.

Architecture Components:

  • Load Balancers (ALB/NLB): Distribute traffic across multiple AZs.

  • Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling: Automatically adjusts capacity to maintain availability.

  • Amazon RDS Multi-AZ: Provides synchronous replication of your database to a standby in another AZ.

  • Amazon S3: Durable object storage with cross-region replication for disaster recovery.

Key Benefits:

  • Automatic failover in case of AZ failure.

  • Zero downtime during maintenance events.

  • Improved resiliency for mission-critical applications.

Use Case: Applications requiring 99.99% uptime.

5. Event-Driven Architecture with Amazon SNS and SQS

Event-driven architectures enable decoupling of components, improving scalability and fault isolation.

Architecture Components:

  • Amazon SNS (Simple Notification Service): Publishes messages to subscribers.

  • Amazon SQS (Simple Queue Service): Queues messages for asynchronous processing.

  • AWS Lambda: Processes events and executes logic.

  • Amazon Kinesis: Processes real-time data streams.

Key Benefits:

  • Decoupling ensures components operate independently.

  • Improved scalability with distributed event processing.

  • Cost-effective handling of high-volume workloads.

Use Case: Real-time data processing, messaging queues, and distributed systems.

6. Static Website Hosting with Amazon S3 and CloudFront

For developers building static websites, AWS provides a simple yet powerful architecture using Amazon S3 and CloudFront.

Architecture Components:

  • Amazon S3: Stores static content (HTML, CSS, JavaScript).

  • Amazon CloudFront: Delivers content via a global CDN for low latency.

  • AWS Certificate Manager: Provides free SSL certificates.

  • Amazon Route 53: Routes traffic to your domain.

Key Benefits:

  • Highly scalable and low-cost.

  • Fast content delivery worldwide.

  • Easy integration with CI/CD pipelines for updates.

Use Case: Blogs, portfolios, landing pages, and marketing websites.

7. Data Lake Architecture on AWS

A data lake allows you to store and analyze vast amounts of structured and unstructured data for analytics and machine learning.

Architecture Components:

  • Amazon S3: Scalable and durable storage for raw data.

  • AWS Glue: ETL service for preparing and transforming data.

  • Amazon Athena: Query data in S3 using SQL.

  • Amazon Redshift: Performs data warehousing and complex analytics.

  • Amazon QuickSight: Visualizes insights from your data.

Key Benefits:

  • Centralized storage for all data types.

  • Cost-effective analytics at scale.

  • Seamless integration with AI/ML services.

Use Case: Business intelligence, advanced analytics, and AI/ML workflows.

AWS offers a wide array of customizable architectures to meet the demands of modern application development. Whether you are building simple static websites, serverless APIs, or complex microservices, these architectures provide scalability, resilience, and cost-effectiveness.

  • Start with the Three-Tier Architecture for basic applications.

  • Adopt Serverless Architecture for quick deployments and reduced costs.

  • Use Microservices for modular, large-scale systems.

  • Leverage Multi-AZ designs for high availability.

  • Implement Event-Driven workflows for decoupled components.

By understanding and implementing these architectures, you can create robust solutions that align with your application’s scalability and resilience requirements.

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