Well-Architected Review
Up to 35% of cloud spend is wasted on unused resources and over-provisioned services. A Well-Architected Review (WAR) changes that by benchmarking your cloud against six best-practice pillars to uncover hidden savings, strengthen security, and build a future-ready foundation.
What is a Well-Architected Review?
The cloud has become the backbone of modern business, powering growth, agility, and innovation. But for many mid-market and enterprise organisations, it also comes with hidden risks and unnecessary costs.
On average, 35% of cloud spend is wasted on over provisioned services, forgotten workloads, and unused licences. For companies spending big on cloud and SaaS, that can amount to hundreds of thousands of pounds slipping away every year.
A Well-Architected Review (WAR) is designed to change that.
Benchmarking your cloud environment against the six WAR pillars of best practice can expose inefficiencies, strengthen resilience, and create a roadmap for improvement. Done right, it doesn’t just cut costs, it builds a cloud foundation that’s efficient, secure, and ready to support long-term business goals.
At Libra Advisory, we deliver Well-Architected Reviews differently.
We focus on cost optimisation first, uncovering “trapped cash” quickly so you can reinvest savings into the projects that matter most.
A Well-Architected Review isn’t just a checkbox. Let’s look at what happens during one of these, and how it can help you save.
Elevate your FinOps
The Six Pillars of a Well-Architected Review
Operational Excellence
Optimise your spending with insights that help you allocate resources effectively and reduce unnecessary costs.
Security
Improve your team's performance through effective resource tracking and enhance overall project delivery.
Reliability
Facilitate better communication and teamwork across departments to align goals and drive efficiency.
Performance Efficiency
Optimise your spending with insights that help you allocate resources effectively and reduce unnecessary costs.
Cost Optimisation
Improve your team's performance through effective resource tracking and enhance overall project delivery.
Sustainability
Facilitate better communication and teamwork across departments to align goals and drive efficiency.
These are practical lenses through which your cloud environment is evaluated to ensure it is resilient, efficient, secure, and delivering maximum business value. By benchmarking against these pillars, organisations gain a structured, 360° view of their cloud estate.
Each pillar highlights different risks and opportunities, from preventing costly downtime to uncovering hidden waste and advancing ESG goals. Together, they provide a comprehensive framework for turning the cloud from a cost centre into a driver of growth and transformation.
Our approach | Cost Optimisation:
The Cost Optimisation process
As part of Libra Advisory’s free Cost Optimisation Review (COR), we’ll systematically get to know your organisation and your FinOps spend through an Analysis and Service Review that involves minimal input from subject matter experts and product owners.
1 | Service
Review
Together, we define two to three priority services for review and complete a short questionnaire on function and resources.
2 | Cost
Review
We’ll run a structured workshop with your technical experts to uncover where costs can be optimised.
3 | Account & Measurement
We then provide estimated savings for each identified win, indicating strategies like storage lifecycle policies or rightsizing.
4 | Project Breakdown
We’ll convert savings into small, deliverable projects (typically under two weeks).
5 | Client Review
If you’d like to go ahead with these projects, we will then move into approval, scheduling, and reporting discussions.
The Outcomes: Why Well-Architected Reviews Matter
1. Immediate wins and long-term improvements
Our Free Cost Optimisation Review gives IT leaders a snapshot of improvements they can start to make to better control the costs of their environment in the long term.
2. Prioritises actions against impact
We use the COR within our consultancy process to identify high-cost resources that make big impacts on OpEx, presenting clear tangible savings to decision makers. Moreover, we take special care to avoid unnecessary load on your engineers by presenting them with easy-to-perform changes backed with clear evidence.
3. Support Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) commitments
Environmental impact is close to our heart, and our Cost Reductions methods lead to real tangible differences in both Scope 2 and Scope 3 carbon accounting.
How we saved £200k on
Google Cloud Computing Service
When ancillary travel services provider Holiday Extras came to Libra Advisory looking for support in optimising their costs to support growth and acquisition plans, we knew we could help them save big.
We worked with senior stakeholders across the business to conduct a Cost-Optimisation Review and quickly identified a number of ways to help them save over £200k per annum.
By removing zombie resources, implementing saving plans, optimising query and lookup tasks and removing or reallocating unused licenses, we were able to optimise their Google cloud computing services, freeing up extra budget for exciting growth plans.
Unlock hidden savings and strengthen your cloud infrastructure with Libra Advisory’s independent Cost Optimisation Review today.
Backed by 70+ years of expertise across IT, procurement, cloud, and FinOps, we go deeper than surface checks to deliver immediate savings and long-term improvements.