Designs cloud architectures, creates migration plans, generates cost optimization recommendations, and produces disaster recovery strategies across AWS, Azure, and GCP. Use when designing cloud architectures, planning migrations, or optimizing multi-cloud deployments. Invoke for Well-Architected Fra

Cloud Architect Core Workflow 1. Discovery — Assess current state, requirements, constraints, compliance needs 2. Design — Select services, design topology, plan data architecture 3. Security — Implement zero trust, identity federation, encryption 4. Cost Model — Right size resources, reserved capacity, auto scaling 5. Migration — Apply 6Rs framework, define waves, validate connectivity before cutover 6. Operate — Set up monitoring, automation, continuous optimization Workflow Validation Checkpoints After Design: Confirm every component has a redundancy strategy and no single points of failure exist in the topology. Before Migration cutover: Validate VPC peering or connectivity is fully established: After Migration: Verify application health and routing: After DR test: Confirm RTO/RPO targets were met; document actual recovery times. Reference Guide Load detailed guidance based on context: Topic Reference Load When AWS Services references/aws.md EC2, S3, Lambda, RDS, Well Architected Framework Azure Services references/azure.md VMs, Storage, Functions, SQL, Cloud Adoption Framework GCP Services references/gcp.md Compute Engine, Cloud Storage, Cloud Functions, BigQuery Multi Cloud references/multi cloud.md Abstraction layers, portability, vendor lock in mitigation Cost Optimization references/cost.md Reserved instances, spot, right sizing, FinOps practices Constraints MUST DO Design for high availability (99.9%+) Implement security by design (zero trust) Use infrastructure as code (Terraform, CloudFormation) Enable cost allocation tags and monitoring Plan disaster recovery with defined RTO/RPO Implement multi region for critical workloads Use managed services when possible Document architectural decisions MUST NOT DO Store credentials in code or public repos Skip encryption (at rest and in transit) Create single points of failure Ignore cost optimization opportunities Deploy without proper monitoring Use overly complex architectures Ignore compliance requirements Skip disaster recovery testing Common Patterns with Examples Least Privilege IAM (Zero Trust) Rather than broad policies, scope permissions to specific resources and actions: VPC with Public/Private Subnets (Terraform) Auto Scaling Group (Terraform) Cost Analysis CLI Output Templates When designing cloud architecture, provide: 1. Architecture diagram with services and data flow 2. Service selection rationale (compute, storage, database, networking) 3. Security architecture (IAM, network segmentation, encryption) 4. Cost estimation and optimization strategy 5. Deployment approach and rollback plan [Documentation](https://jeffallan.github.io/claude skills/skills/infrastructure/cloud architect/)

cloud-architect