Domain 2 · New solutions
29% of the exam, the largest domain. Designing a new workload for deployment, continuity, security, reliability, performance and cost.
This domain starts from a blank page. There's a new workload and a list of requirements, and you pick the design. Each task lines up with a Well-Architected pillar, so questions usually hinge on one dominant requirement: it must survive a Region failure, it must handle 10x spikes, it must cost as little as possible.
| Task | What it's really asking | Pages |
|---|---|---|
| 2.1 Deployment strategy | How to ship changes safely and roll them back | Deployment strategies, Configuration and patching, End-user computing and contact centers |
| 2.2 Business continuity | Which DR pattern, and how to replicate data | Disaster recovery, Route 53 routing |
| 2.3 Security controls | Least privilege, network flows, DDoS, encryption, endpoints, patching | DDoS and edge security, Private S3 access, Encryption, VPC endpoints |
| 2.4 Reliability | Multi-AZ and multi-Region designs, loose coupling, DNS routing | Route 53 routing, Load balancers, Decoupling |
| 2.5 Performance | Caching, buffering, replicas, choosing purpose-built services | Caching, Purpose-built databases, Compute and containers, Analytics patterns |
| 2.6 Cost optimization | Pricing models, storage tiers, data transfer | Pricing models |
Exam signal
Find the one requirement the question can't compromise on. The other requirements usually just eliminate options that are otherwise good.
Cost visibility
Tagging, cost categories, Cost Explorer, Budgets, Data Exports, anomaly detection and rightsizing tools for seeing and controlling spend across an organization.
Deployment strategies
All-at-once, rolling, immutable, blue/green, canary and linear deployments, how CodeDeploy, Elastic Beanstalk and CloudFormation implement them, and how to roll back safely.