Building Better OpenSearch Architectures with Amazon Web Services and Softprom

AWS has released the Amazon OpenSearch Service Lens, a specialized extension of the AWS Well-Architected Framework. The lens provides detailed guidance, design principles, and best practices for evaluating OpenSearch workloads and identifying areas where improvements can strengthen performance, security, resilience, and cost efficiency.

Softprom, as an official partner of Amazon Web Services, helps organizations apply these recommendations and modernize their OpenSearch architectures efficiently and confidently.

What Is the AWS Well-Architected Framework?

The AWS Well-Architected Framework provides a consistent methodology for evaluating cloud architectures and ensuring that they are secure, high-performing, resilient, and efficient. It is built on six foundational pillars:

1. Operational Excellence
2. Security
3. Reliability
4. Performance Efficiency
5. Cost Optimization
6. Sustainability

The Amazon OpenSearch Service Lens extends these pillars with specific, actionable guidance for search and analytics workloads.

Introducing the Amazon OpenSearch Service Lens

The OpenSearch Service Lens consolidates real-world insights from AWS customers, partners, and OpenSearch specialists. It addresses the most critical architectural questions for OpenSearch environments, such as:

• How to size and configure domains for optimal performance
• How to manage data retention and lifecycle policies
• How to implement robust security and access controls
• How to maintain reliability as data volume and query complexity grow

This lens joins other AWS Well-Architected Lenses that cover IoT, AI/ML, SAP, games, and serverless workloads.

How the OpenSearch Service Lens Supports the Six Pillars

1. Operational Excellence

Guidance focuses on monitoring, logging, automation, operational insights, and continuous improvement. Key considerations: workload observability, deployment practices, and operational efficiency.

2. Security

Recommendations include fine-grained access control, encryption, secure network configurations, vulnerability detection, and minimizing attack surface. Protecting sensitive search and analytics data is a priority.

3. Reliability

Ensures workloads are prepared for failures and can recover automatically. This includes multi-AZ deployments, backup and restore strategies, cluster state management, and resilient scaling.

4. Performance Efficiency

Best practices for selecting instance types, tuning domain configuration, optimizing indexing and search patterns, and reducing operational overhead. Performance monitoring is a key component.

5. Cost Optimization

Helps organizations balance performance with efficient spending. Covers storage tiering (UltraWarm, cold storage), cost allocation tags, rightsizing domains, and using Reserved Instances.

6. Sustainability

Focuses on minimizing environmental impact by optimizing domain sizing, choosing energy-efficient instance types, and reducing unnecessary compute and storage usage.

How to Get Started with the OpenSearch Service Lens

1. Review the AWS Well-Architected Framework pillars.
2. Open the AWS Well-Architected Tool in the AWS Management Console.
3. Import the Amazon OpenSearch Service Lens under Custom Lenses.
4. Complete the questionnaires to identify risks and improvement opportunities.
5. Plan regular architecture reviews with your technical team.
6. Create an improvement roadmap prioritizing performance, cost, reliability, and security enhancements.
7. Engage AWS Support, AWS Professional Services, or an AWS Partner like Softprom for guidance and implementation.

The lens is continuously updated to reflect the latest OpenSearch capabilities and architectural best practices.

How Softprom Supports Your OpenSearch Modernization

As an official AWS Partner, Softprom helps organizations:

• Conduct AWS Well-Architected Reviews using the OpenSearch Lens
• Analyze and optimize domain sizing, security, performance, and cost
• Implement lifecycle management, monitoring, and operational improvements
• Migrate or modernize existing OpenSearch clusters
• Apply best practices aligned with the latest AWS innovations

Conclusion

The Amazon OpenSearch Service Lens provides a structured, practical approach to building and optimizing well-architected OpenSearch workloads. By applying its guidance, organizations can improve the reliability, security, performance, and sustainability of their search and analytics environments.

Softprom and AWS help you ensure that your OpenSearch deployments are aligned with modern architectural best practices and fully prepared to support your business goals.