# Content Domain 3: Continuous Improvement for Existing Solutions
<a name="solutions-architect-professional-02-domain3"></a>

**Topics**
+ [Task 3.1: Determine a strategy to improve overall operational excellence.](#solutions-architect-professional-02-domain3-task1)
+ [Task 3.2: Determine a strategy to improve security.](#solutions-architect-professional-02-domain3-task2)
+ [Task 3.3: Determine a strategy to improve performance.](#solutions-architect-professional-02-domain3-task3)
+ [Task 3.4: Determine a strategy to improve reliability.](#solutions-architect-professional-02-domain3-task4)
+ [Task 3.5: Identify opportunities for cost optimizations.](#solutions-architect-professional-02-domain3-task5)

## Task 3.1: Determine a strategy to improve overall operational excellence.
<a name="solutions-architect-professional-02-domain3-task1"></a>

Knowledge of:
+ Alerting and automatic remediation strategies
+ Disaster recovery planning
+ Monitoring and logging solutions (for example, Amazon CloudWatch)
+ CI/CD pipelines and deployment strategies (for example, blue/green, all-at-once, rolling)
+ Configuration management tools (for example, AWS Systems Manager)

Skills in:
+ Determining the most appropriate logging and monitoring strategy
+ Evaluating current deployment processes for improvement opportunities
+ Prioritizing opportunities for automation within a solution stack
+ Recommending the appropriate AWS solution to enable configuration management automation
+ Engineering failure scenario activities to support and exercise an understanding of recovery actions

## Task 3.2: Determine a strategy to improve security.
<a name="solutions-architect-professional-02-domain3-task2"></a>

Knowledge of:
+ Data retention, data sensitivity, and data regulatory requirements
+ Automated monitoring and remediation strategies (for example, AWS Config rules)
+ Secrets management (for example, Systems Manager, AWS Secrets Manager)
+ Principle of least privilege access
+ Security-specific AWS solutions
+ Patching practices
+ Backup practices and methods

Skills in:
+ Evaluating a strategy for the secure management of secrets and credentials
+ Auditing an environment for least privilege access
+ Reviewing implemented solutions to ensure security at every layer
+ Reviewing comprehensive traceability of users and services
+ Prioritizing automated responses to the detection of vulnerabilities
+ Designing and implementing a patch and update process
+ Designing and implementing a backup process
+ Employing remediation techniques

## Task 3.3: Determine a strategy to improve performance.
<a name="solutions-architect-professional-02-domain3-task3"></a>

Knowledge of:
+ High-performing systems architectures (for example, auto scaling, instance fleets, placement groups)
+ Global service offerings (for example, AWS Global Accelerator, Amazon CloudFront, edge computing services)
+ Monitoring tool sets and services (for example, CloudWatch)
+ Service level agreements (SLAs) and key performance indicators (KPIs)

Skills in:
+ Translating business requirements to measurable metrics
+ Testing potential remediation solutions and making recommendations
+ Proposing opportunities for the adoption of new technologies and managed services
+ Assessing solutions and applying rightsizing based on requirements
+ Identifying and examining performance bottlenecks

## Task 3.4: Determine a strategy to improve reliability.
<a name="solutions-architect-professional-02-domain3-task4"></a>

Knowledge of:
+ AWS Global Infrastructure
+ Data replication methods
+ Scaling methodologies (for example, load balancing, auto scaling)
+ High availability and resiliency
+ Disaster recovery methods and tools
+ Service quotas and limits

Skills in:
+ Understanding application growth and usage trends
+ Evaluating existing architecture to determine areas that are not sufficiently reliable
+ Remediating single points of failure
+ Enabling data replication, self-healing, and elastic features and services

## Task 3.5: Identify opportunities for cost optimizations.
<a name="solutions-architect-professional-02-domain3-task5"></a>

Knowledge of:
+ Cost-conscious architecture choices (for example, using Spot Instances, scaling policies, and rightsizing resources)
+ Price model adoptions (for example, Reserved Instances, AWS Savings Plans)
+ Networking and data transfer costs
+ Cost management, alerting, and reporting

Skills in:
+ Analyzing usage reports to identify underutilized and overutilized resources
+ Using AWS solutions to identify unused resources
+ Designing billing alarms based on expected usage patterns
+ Investigating AWS Cost and Usage Reports at a granular level
+ Using tagging for cost allocation and reporting