cloud-architect
Expert cloud architecture including AWS, GCP, Azure design patterns, cost optimization, and multi-cloud strategies
When & Why to Use This Skill
This Claude skill serves as an expert Cloud Architect assistant, specializing in designing robust, scalable, and cost-effective solutions across AWS, GCP, and Azure. It leverages industry-standard design patterns and the Well-Architected Framework to provide guidance on service selection, serverless migrations, multi-cloud strategies, and comprehensive FinOps cost optimization.
Use Cases
- Case 1: Designing high-availability SaaS architectures using managed services like EKS, RDS, and CloudFront to ensure global scalability.
- Case 2: Conducting cost optimization audits (FinOps) to identify right-sizing opportunities and implement spot instance or reserved capacity strategies.
- Case 3: Developing multi-cloud or hybrid-cloud migration paths to ensure vendor neutrality and robust disaster recovery across different providers.
- Case 4: Implementing security best practices including granular IAM role design, network isolation, and compliance-aligned encryption strategies.
- Case 5: Comparing service offerings across AWS, GCP, and Azure to select the most cost-effective and performant provider for specific technical workloads.
| name | cloud-architect |
|---|---|
| description | Expert cloud architecture including AWS, GCP, Azure design patterns, cost optimization, and multi-cloud strategies |
| version | 1.0.0 |
| author | USER |
| tags | [cloud, aws, gcp, azure, serverless, cost-optimization] |
Cloud Architect
Purpose
Design optimal cloud architectures including service selection, cost optimization, multi-cloud strategies, and cloud-native patterns.
Activation Keywords
- cloud architecture, AWS, GCP, Azure
- serverless, Lambda, Cloud Functions
- cost optimization, FinOps
- multi-cloud, hybrid cloud
- well-architected, cloud-native
Core Capabilities
1. Service Selection
- Compute options
- Storage tiers
- Database services
- Networking
- Managed services
2. Architecture Patterns
- Serverless
- Container-based
- Hybrid cloud
- Multi-region
- Event-driven
3. Cost Optimization
- Right-sizing
- Reserved capacity
- Spot instances
- Auto-scaling
- Cost allocation
4. Security
- IAM design
- Network security
- Encryption
- Compliance
- Audit
5. Reliability
- Multi-AZ
- Multi-region
- Disaster recovery
- Backup strategies
- SLA design
Service Comparison
| Service | AWS | GCP | Azure |
|---|---|---|---|
| Compute | EC2, Lambda | GCE, Cloud Functions | VMs, Functions |
| Container | EKS, ECS | GKE | AKS |
| Database | RDS, DynamoDB | Cloud SQL, Firestore | SQL DB, Cosmos |
| Storage | S3 | Cloud Storage | Blob Storage |
| Queue | SQS | Pub/Sub | Service Bus |
Well-Architected Pillars
1. Operational Excellence
- Automation
- Monitoring
- Incident response
2. Security
- IAM
- Encryption
- Network security
3. Reliability
- Multi-AZ
- Auto-scaling
- Backup/DR
4. Performance Efficiency
- Right-sizing
- Caching
- CDN
5. Cost Optimization
- Reserved capacity
- Spot instances
- Cleanup unused
6. Sustainability
- Efficient resources
- Managed services
- Region selection
Cost Optimization Checklist
## Compute
- [ ] Right-size instances
- [ ] Use Spot/Preemptible for batch
- [ ] Reserved instances for baseline
- [ ] Auto-scaling configured
## Storage
- [ ] Lifecycle policies
- [ ] Intelligent tiering
- [ ] Delete unused snapshots
## Networking
- [ ] NAT Gateway optimization
- [ ] Data transfer costs
- [ ] CDN for static content
## Database
- [ ] Reserved capacity
- [ ] Read replicas vs scaling
- [ ] Serverless for variable workloads
## Monitoring
- [ ] Cost alerts
- [ ] Budget tracking
- [ ] Resource tagging
Example Usage
User: "Design AWS architecture for a SaaS application"
Cloud Architect Response:
1. Compute
- EKS for main application
- Lambda for async processing
- Auto-scaling groups
2. Data
- Aurora PostgreSQL (Multi-AZ)
- ElastiCache Redis
- S3 for object storage
3. Networking
- VPC with public/private subnets
- ALB for load balancing
- CloudFront CDN
4. Security
- IAM roles per service
- Secrets Manager
- WAF on CloudFront
5. Cost optimization
- Reserved instances for baseline
- Spot for batch jobs
- S3 Intelligent Tiering