AWS provides a variety of support plans, however, they’ll require a robust internal resource.
Important Takeaways
AWS provides 4 support plans that include basic developer, developer, enterprise on-ramp, and enterprise
Each offers a different tier of support for a specific cost , based upon your charges per unit This can cause confusion
Support services aren’t as good, may not be enough for your business and you might not have the IT department to help support your efforts
Managed service providers provide the complete service with an experienced team for a fraction of the cost of hiring your own team
A managed services provider offering AWS support plans helps budgeting with a monthly fixed price
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the largest provider of cloud services, with more than one million users in the business sector. Although they offer assistance to customers, the basic plan offers only whitepapers, documentation and forums for assistance. They also offer resource guidance as well as health checks of services via a dashboard, and several other services but they do not offer any technical assistance.
AWS offers premium support with architectural guidance on specific-use cases, but it offers no code development or custom software debugging and does not offer system administration. Support fees are calculated per account and the amount you’ll be charged per month will vary.
The quality of support likely to be inadequate for your business, which is the reason why many AWS customers are using the AWS Managed Services Provider (MSP) for a one-on one attention, predictable pricing, and the complete guidance and knowledge that they require to assist the whole business. Let’s look at what support AWS provides under their different plans, and why an MSP might be exactly what you need to run your company.
AWS support plans
AWS offers basic plans for business, developer, enterprise on-ramp, and enterprise support plans, each with different features. All plans include the basic plan along with their add-ons:
Basic Support Plan
This plan is offered free for everyone AWS customers and offers:
AWS documentation
Technical papers
Support forums
Health checks for service Access to all checks within the Service Quotas category, along with six checks in the Security category
Best practice guides
This plan also offers account and billing questions in addition to support for service quote increases. The base plan is not able to provide human technical support.
Developer support plan
The Developer plan, which is recommended if you are testing or experimenting in AWS it includes everything that is in the basic plan, with:
Best practice guidelines
Diagnostic tools
Architectural guidance for blending features, products, and services
The plan also allows for the possibility of unlimited support cases however, only one contact is permitted, which is the root user.
Business support plan
This is when support becomes stronger, however it’s not free, and your expenses are not always predictable. The service is paid every month and the support charges are calculated based on the total monthly AWS charges. The minimum charge each month is $100. What you’ll be charged is either the minimum , or a percentage in your AWS charges on the scale of sliding:
10% of the amount up to $10,000
7% between $10,000 and $80,000
5 % from $80,000 to $250,000
3percent over $250,000
For this price it includes everything that is included you need in the basic and developer plans, as well as an AWS Trusted Advisor console and the AWS Support API. Your IT team to examine your environment to determine opportunities for cost savings, beef up security, as well as increase the performance and reliability.
Also, you’ll get assistance with Amazon Elastic Cloud instance operating systems and configuration and assistance in resolving performance issues with the most well-known 3rd-party AWS software components.
Enterprise On-Ramp , Enterprise Support and Enterprise Support plans
Enterprise On-Ramps and Enterprise Support plan customers get all the benefits offered to business plan customers and also get advice on architecture for applications and management of infrastructure events and technical account managers who can work with your own specific usage cases and applications.
The plan also includes white-glove routing and management business reviews. These plans are offered at a cost:
Enterprise On-Ramp pricing requires the minimum monthly amount of $5,500 or 10 percent on your AWS monthly revenue.
Enterprise pricing requires the minimum cost of $15,000 or
10% of up to $150,000
7% of $150,000 – $500,000
5% of $500,000 to $1,000,000
3 % over $1,000,000
Make sure to keep in mind that when you are using AWS support plans, if you just use the plan for a single time but you’re still responsible for the total monthly fee in the event that you decide that the plan isn’t suitable for your mid-billing cycle and you decide to cancel, you’ll be charged for the entire month.
Not only is billing difficult, but these business plans might not provide the support you require without radically beefing up your IT department. You’ll have to hire all cloud administration, development along with security and cloud experts. This is quite costly.
For many companies it is logical to hire a managed service provider. Let’s explore the reason why.
The MSPs are always there for you
Support for your business isn’t only in the event of an issue. It is important to avoid any issues, and MSPs provide a complete solution providing end-to-end monitoring of workloads and applications. With the help of experienced, knowledgeable Dev Ops and Sec Ops, as well as managed services, you can concentrate on your bottom-line concern, which is managing a profitable business.
When it comes to the budgeting for technical support, with an MSP there’s no guesswork, or percentages of gross to worry about. Monthly costs are predictable as you’ll pay the same amount each month. Furthermore an MSP like IGGroup offers the following benefits to AWS users:
24×7 availability
Efficient use of resources – your staff can remain focused on business projects within the company that help you stay competitive and expanding.
Capability to scale your business quickly
Security of your data Data security MSP Sec Ops specialists can discover and close security gaps as well as provide ongoing security monitoring for vulnerabilities both in the cloud and on the network of your company.
Help you plan for the future
Peace of mind
AWS Managed Service Provider AWS Managed Service Provider, as part and parcel of total support, can help you create and design, and migrate, run and manage, and improve your cloud implementations. Dedicated managed services offer access to the experience cloud engineers and architects you require at a fraction of cost to hire an internal team.
