This final module pulls the course together. Knowing individual services is not enough for a cloud architect. You also need to decide how an application should be structured and how to get it into the cloud in the first place. The way a system is organized shapes how it scales, how it fails, and how much it costs.
You'll compare the main architecture patterns: a monolith that ships as one unit, microservices that split the system into independent services, and serverless functions that run only when triggered. Each has trade-offs, and the right choice depends on the team and the problem. You'll also meet the AWS Well-Architected Framework, a set of pillars for judging whether a design is secure, reliable, efficient, and cost-aware.
The module ends with migration. The common "Rs" of cloud migration, such as rehost, replatform, and refactor, give you a vocabulary for deciding how each existing application should move. After this module, you're ready to put everything into practice in the course projects.
The major software architecture styles, with real examples and the pros and cons of each.
A real-world look at how Amazon Prime moved from distributed microservices to a monolith, and what it says about choosing an architecture.
A walkthrough of the six pillars used to evaluate whether a cloud workload is secure, reliable, and cost-effective.