AWS Support plans
AWS offers four different Support plans to help you troubleshoot issues, lower costs, and efficiently use AWS services.
You can choose from the following Support plans to meet your company’s needs:
- Basic
- Developer
- Business
- Enterprise
Basic Support
Basic Support is free for all AWS Customers. It includes access to whitepapers, documentation, and support communities. With Basic Support, you can also contact AWS for billing questions and service limit increases.
With Basic Support, you have access to a limited selection of AWS Trusted Advisor checks. Additionally, you can use the AWS Personal Health Dashboard, a tool that provides alerts and remediation guidance when AWS is experiencing events that may affect you.
If your company needs support beyond the Basic level, you could consider purchasing Developer, Business, or Enterprise Support.
Developer, Business, and Enterprise Support
The Developer, Business, and Enterprise Support plans include all the benefits of Basic Support, in addition to the ability to open an unrestricted number of technical support cases. These three Support plans have pay-by-the-month pricing and require no long-term contracts.
The information in this course highlights only a selection of details for each Support plan. A complete overview of what is included in each Support plan, including pricing for each plan, is available on the AWS Support site.
In general, for pricing, the Developer plan has the lowest cost, the Business plan is in the middle, and the Enterprise plan has the highest cost.
Developer Support
Customers in the Developer Support plan have access to features such as:
- Best practice guidance
- Client-side diagnostic tools
- Building-block architecture support, which consists of guidance for how to use AWS offerings, features, and services together
For example, suppose that your company is exploring AWS services. You’ve heard about a few different AWS services. However, you’re unsure of how to potentially use them together to build applications that can address your company’s needs. In this scenario, the building-block architecture support that is included with the Developer Support plan could help you to identify opportunities for combining specific services and features.
Business Support
Customers with a Business Support plan have access to additional features, including:
- Use-case guidance to identify AWS offerings, features, and services that can best support your specific needs
- All AWS Trusted Advisor checks
- Limited support for third-party software, such as common operating systems and application stack components
Suppose that your company has the Business Support plan and wants to install a common third-party operating system onto your Amazon EC2 instances. You could contact AWS Support for assistance with installing, configuring, and troubleshooting the operating system. For advanced topics such as optimizing performance, using custom scripts, or resolving security issues, you may need to contact the third-party software provider directly.
Enterprise Support
In addition to all the features included in the Basic, Developer, and Business Support plans, customers with an Enterprise Support plan have access to features such as:
- Application architecture guidance, which is a consultative relationship to support your company’s specific use cases and applications
- Infrastructure event management: A short-term engagement with AWS Support that helps your company gain a better understanding of your use cases. This also provides your company with architectural and scaling guidance
- A Technical Account Manager
Technical Account Manager (TAM)
The Enterprise Support plan includes access to a Technical Account Manager (TAM).
If your company has an Enterprise Support plan, the TAM is your primary point of contact at AWS. They provide guidance, architectural reviews, and ongoing communication with your company as you plan, deploy, and optimize your applications.
Your TAM provides expertise across the full range of AWS services. They help you design solutions that efficiently use multiple services together through an integrated approach.
For example, suppose that you are interested in developing an application that uses several AWS services together. Your TAM could provide insights into how to best use the services together. They achieve this, while aligning with the specific needs that your company is hoping to address through the new application.
