Each Quick Start includes an architecture diagram, which illustrates the reference architecture, and a deployment guide, which describes the architecture in detail and provides step-by-step deployment and customization instructions. The deployment guide and architecture diagram are key components of the Quick Start. If you’re building a Quick Start, please review the examples and use the templates in this section to create this content. The Quick Start team will work with you on content reviews and edits, and will publish the finished diagram and deployment guide on the AWS website.

Creating an architecture diagram

Architecture diagram template: Visio or PowerPoint

Important — You must use one of these templates for your architecture diagram. Otherwise, we won’t be able to publish your Quick Start.

The architecture diagram gives users a view of the reference architecture built by your Quick Start. At a single glance, the user can see the components built by the Quick Start, including the network infrastructure, the AWS services, and your workload instances. The diagram also illustrates the best practices automated by the Quick Start, including scalability, high availability, and security.

If your architecture has many components, consider creating a high-level diagram as well as detailed diagrams that drill down into relevant areas of the architecture. Or, your Quick Start might offer multiple deployment scenarios. In that case, provide a separate diagram for each scenario.

When creating your diagram, follow these guidelines:

  • For services, make sure to use the official AWS icons and labels provided on the AWS simple icons page.
  • Add callouts or labels as necessary to identify workloads, tiers, and other graphics on your diagram.
  • For service names, use the labels provided with the AWS icons. For all other labels and callouts, use sentence case (that is, capitalize the first word only) except for proper nouns.
  • Use background shading with muted colors (included in the templates) to separate tiers or distinct areas of the diagrams, but don’t go overboard with color.
  • Make sure your diagram is clear and legible when imported into the deployment guide.

Here are some good examples of architecture diagrams:

Creating a deployment guide

Deployment guide template: Word format

Important — You must use this template for your deployment guide. Otherwise, we won’t be able to publish your Quick Start.

The Quick Start deployment guide provides detailed information about the architecture of your workload on AWS, includes step-by-step instructions for deploying the Quick Start and configuring the template parameters, and any additional information about usage scenarios, licensing, troubleshooting, and best practices for using your product on AWS.

We’ve provided a Word template with standard formatting and suggested sections. Please include as much information as necessary to help users understand the usage scenarios for deploying your product on AWS, customization options, and how to get started using the software after deployment.

Here are some deployment guides that we consider good examples because of their scope and detail: