Slideshow: Amazon's Case For Enterprise Cloud Computing
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AWS makes a wide range of self-service materials available through its Basic technical support. They include an EC2 Resource Center with references to Amazon Machine Image templates and developer resources. It also offers an always-on Service Health Dashboard, telling you whether a data center and service you are trying to use is operating normally. It also hosts developer forums and publishes technical FAQs.
Pricing on Silver support was reduced from 10% of the customer’s monthly AWS usage bill to 5% or a minimum of $100 per month; pricing on Gold support dropped from 20% of the monthly AWS bill to 10%, or less, depending on volume of usage, or a minimum of $400 a month.
The Bronze plan was needed to answer questions from developers building applications to run in the EC2 infrastructure and make use of various APIs and services. Selipsky said the plan levels are meant to give customers the choice of selecting an option that suits them rather than have the service provider bundle support into service pricing. The announcement called the support plans “building blocks to succeed without unnecessary bundling or long term commitments.”
In the AWS FAQ on its Premium technical support, which includes Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum, a question asks how support incidents may a customer initiate a year. The answer give is “as many as you need.” Though EC2 is used by customers around the world, technical support at this time is offered only in English.
Amazon Web Services is a subsidiary of Amazon.com, which provides technology infrastructure services separate from but patterned on its online store's infrastructure.