A city compares two AWS designs: one cheaper but fragile, and one more resilient but more expensive. What does that comparison illustrate about Well-Architected pillars?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation
Cheap-but-fragile versus sturdy-but-costlier is a classic tug-of-war between two different scorecards. Cost Optimization and Reliability are separate pillars, so teams weigh trade-offs instead of pretending they are one idea. Reliability is real, and it does not ban spending when resilience is required.
Full Explanation
Well-Architected pillars can pull design decisions in different directions: improving resilience may increase cost, while aggressive cost cutting can reduce fault tolerance. Cost Optimization and Reliability remain distinct pillars rather than alternate labels for one concern. Reliability is a named pillar, and it does not require choosing fragile architectures. The city’s comparison is best framed as an explicit trade-off between those two pillars.