Templates

Architecture templates

Production starting points

Use these static templates as starting maps for common AWS production deployments.

Static website or SPA

Route 53 -> CloudFront -> S3, with ACM for TLS and optional WAF.

Core pieces

  • S3 bucket for assets
  • CloudFront distribution
  • custom domain
  • ACM certificate
  • cache policy
  • CI/CD upload step.

Production note

Use CloudFront invalidations carefully, block direct public S3 access, and add security headers.

Serverless API

API Gateway -> Lambda -> DynamoDB, with EventBridge or SQS for async work.

Core pieces

  • API Gateway routes
  • Lambda versions/aliases
  • DynamoDB PITR
  • CloudWatch alarms
  • structured logs
  • DLQ or retry strategy.

Production note

Design idempotency, throttling, auth, reserved concurrency, and rollback before launch.

Container web app

CloudFront/WAF -> ALB -> ECS Fargate tasks across private subnets.

Core pieces

  • ECR image scanning
  • ECS service
  • task role
  • ALB health checks
  • Secrets Manager
  • CloudWatch logs
  • autoscaling.

Production note

Tune health checks and deployment circuit breakers; keep databases outside tasks.

Multi-AZ relational app

ALB -> compute layer -> Aurora/RDS Multi-AZ with private subnets.

Core pieces

  • VPC across two or more AZs
  • DB subnet group
  • backups
  • RDS Proxy where needed
  • alarms and restore drills.

Production note

Test failover, connection pooling, migrations, and point-in-time recovery.

Event-driven processing

EventBridge/SQS/SNS -> Lambda/ECS workers -> durable storage.

Core pieces

  • Event schema
  • DLQ
  • retry policy
  • archive/replay
  • idempotent consumers
  • backlog alarms.

Production note

Plan poison-message handling and replay procedures before production traffic.

Data lake and analytics

S3 data lake -> Glue catalog/jobs -> Athena/Redshift/OpenSearch/QuickSight.

Core pieces

  • Bucket partitioning
  • lifecycle policies
  • IAM boundaries
  • encryption
  • data quality checks
  • cost controls.

Production note

Control query scan costs and define ownership for raw, curated, and published zones.