AWS support you at every step of your cloud journey. From startups to large enterprises, whether you're in the private sector or the public sector, these support options tailored to different needs. These Support plans have pay-by-the-month pricing and require no long-term contracts.
As a Cloud Practitioner, this information will be really helpful when it comes to figuring out which support plans best fits your company's stage and needs. You can choose from the following options:
Basic (free)
Developer (lowest paid option)
Business
Enterprise On-Ramp
Enterprise (highest paid option)
AWS Basic Support
Free for all, every customer gets AWS Basic Support.
24/7 access to customer service
Documentation and whitepapers
Support forums
A limited selection of AWS Trusted Advisor checks
AWS Personal Health Dashboard, which sends you alerts if any AWS issues might affect your resources.
AWS Developer Support
This is an ideal plan for businesses experimenting with AWS or setting up tests and proofs of concept. Developer Support includes everything from Basic Support and adds:
24-hour response time when you email customer support directly.
12-hour response time if there has been a system impairment, which means issues that make your AWS resources perform below their normal standards. For example, a network outage that make users lose access to your services.
Guidance for combining specific AWS offerings, features, and services together.
AWS Business Support
When you're ready to take your production workloads live, consider upgrading to AWS Business Support. You still get everything from the previous plans, and:
All AWS Trusted Advisor checks.
Direct phone access to AWS support with a 4-hour response time for production system impairments. For example, if a website suddenly gets more traffic and pages start to load slower.
1-hour response time for when your production system is down.
For an extra fee, you can get assistance in planning and handling massive events such as product launches or global advertising campaigns.
Limited support for third-party software. For example, installing, configuring, and troubleshooting the operating system.
AWS Enterprise On-Ramp
This plan is recommended for companies migrating important work into AWS. includes everything from the previous plans and:
30 minutes or less response time for business-critical issues.
Access to a pool of Technical Account Managers (TAMs). More on them in a second!
A Cost Optimisation workshop (one per year).
Consultative review and architecture guidance (one per year). In other words, they give advice and help plan how your AWS architecture should work.
Infrastructure Event Management support (one per year).*
A Concierge support team for billing and account assistance.
Tools to monitor costs and performance through Trusted Advisor and Health API/Dashboard.
*AWS Infrastructure Event Management (IEM) offers architecture and scaling support to companies gearing for a big event, such as shopping holidays, product launches, and migrations. AWS experts will help companies identify and prevent risks, and carry out the event confidently.
AWS Enterprise Support
For companies running mission-critical workloads, AWS Enterprise Support is the top-tier plan. It includes everything from the previous plans, and
A designated TAM and unlimited access to:
Consultative review and architecture guidance
Infrastructure Event Management support
Cost Optimisation Workshop and tools
15 minutes or less response time for business-critical issues (i.e. issues like major system outages or data breaches that can seriously harm a company' operations, reputation or finances)
A support team for billing and account assistance
Operations Reviews and tools to monitor health
Special tools to monitor costs and performance through Trusted Advisor and Health API/Dashboard
Technical Account Manager (TAM)
TAMs come with Enterprise On-Ramp and Enterprise Support. The TAM becomes a company's primary point of contact at AWS. The job of a TAM is much more than just handling trouble tickets - they think about how they can also help the companies they're helping to be successful. They:
Provide expert engineering guidance, and tailored advice on how to best use AWS services together
Conduct Well-Architected (more on the Well-Architected Framework later in the course!) and operations review
Assist with cost-effective and resilient architectures
Provide direct access to AWS programs and a broad community of experts.
Offer infrastructure event management
AWS Marketplace
On top of AWS Support, we have the AWS Marketplace! The Marketplace is a digital department store with thousands of software from independent companies (that are not AWS themselves). It's like Apple's App Store or the Google Play Store, except all the listings are made for AWS.
You can explore products across different categories like:
Infrastructure as software: Managing and provisioning infrastructure resources using software code.
DevOps: A set of practices that blend software development (Dev) and IT operations (Ops) to improve collaboration and automate processes. This is a really popular practise in software development teams today.
Data products: Offerings that provide data-driven insights or services based on data analysis.
Professional services: Services provided by AWS experts to help other companies with understanding and making the most of AWS.
Business applications: Software or tools designed to improve business processes.
Machine learning: A type of artificial intelligence that lets systems to learn and improve from data.
Industries: Specific sectors or domains in which businesses operate, such as healthcare, finance, or manufacturing.
Internet of Things (IoT): A network of interconnected physical devices and objects that can collect and exchange data.
Why we love AWS Marketplace
One-click deployment
Instead of building, installing, and maintaining the infrastructure needed to run third-party applications, lots of Marketplace solutions offer one-click deployment. This means you can get straight to using the product with minimal set up!
Variety
AWS Marketplace lets you explore software solutions specifically designed for your industry. If you're in the healthcare industry, you can find solutions for protecting patient records, harnessing machine learning for medical analysis, and much more.
Flexible pricing
Third party vendors* usually have annual contracts for on-premises data centres. For example, companies usually go into annual licenses to use databases like MySQL or Oracle.
*Third party vendors are the companies that make additional software and services for use with AWS. They are not AWS themselves. This is very similar to additional apps you might download on your laptop that Microsoft or Apple didn't make themselves - for example, Adobe is a third-party vendor that offers software like Photoshop.
But what if the company decides to move to the cloud? Many third-party vendors let customers use the same annual licenses they had for on-premises data centres for the cloud servers on AWS. This helps companies save money and keep using the same software, even as they transition to the cloud.
Some Marketplace vendors also offer flexible pricing plans, like on-demand pay-as-you-go options.
You only pay for the software as you use it
There are also free trials and Quick Start plans, so you can experiment and explore their offerings without commitment.
Enterprise benefits
The AWS Marketplace has a few enterprise-focused features:
Custom terms and pricing (i.e. enterprise discounts, or custom agreements based on their unique needs).
A private marketplace that shows you a catalog of software solutions that meet you legal and security standards.
Other support services
AWS' support doesn't stop at their Support plans and the AWS Marketplace, so let's have a quick look at the other resources out there.
AWS Health Dashboard: A tool that provides real-time information about the status of AWS services, helping users stay informed about any ongoing issues or outages.
AWS Health API: An tool that helps developers to programmatically access (i.e. access through code) information from the AWS Health Dashboard, so they can automate responses to any events being reported.
AWS Service Quotas: A tool that helps you manage your quotas* for all AWS services and even request any quota increases.
AWS Cost Anomaly Detection: A feature that uses machine learning to detect any unusual spending patterns in your AWS account and their root causes. It can also alert you and send daily/weekly summaries so you can take action quickly. You can find this tool in the AWS Cost Management Console.
AWS Prescriptive Guidance: This resource provides guides, practical advice and articles on best practices for designing, implementing, and managing AWS solutions for all kinds of situations.
AWS re:Post: AWS' community space, where users can post articles and questions.
AWS Knowledge Center: A knowledge base of articles, documentation, and frequently asked questions. Knowledge Center migrated to become a part of AWS re:Post in 2023!
AWS Whitepapers: In-depth documents that covers AWS services, architectures, and best practices.
AWS Professional Services: AWS' consulting service that provides expertise and guidance to help companies plan, build, and optimise their AWS environments.
AWS Solutions Architects: Professionals who work closely with customers to understand their unique needs and design AWS solutions that align with those needs. Solutions Architects play a key role in designing and implementing solutions that work with AWS' best practices and industry standards. Compared to Professional Services, which give broader advice on managing an AWS environment, Solutions Architects are specialists that work on specific solutions for individual clients.
AWS Trust and Safety team: AWS staff that play an important role in maintaining a secure and compliant AWS environment. You can report abuse, violations, or misuse of AWS resources to this team, helping to maintain the integrity and safety of AWS.
*Quotas, also called limits, are the maximum number of resources that you can create in an AWS account. Every AWS account has Region-specific quotas for each service.
