Content Domain 4: Billing, Pricing, and Support

Task Statement 4.3: Identify AWS technical resources and AWS Support options

Let's get started with our last task statement, which is to identify AWS technical resources and AWS support options. When it comes to using AWS, it's impossible for any one person to know absolutely everything there is to know about all of the services, features, and tools, even with the Cloud Center of Excellence. And when you run into things you can't figure out, or solve for yourself, or if you just need something that would be too difficult or time consuming to build yourself, you have the AWS Managed Services and the technology support options. Support in this context doesn't just mean that something has gone wrong and you need help fixing it. Oftentimes, support involves assisting as you design and build your environments, so that you are able to get the assistance and guidance that you need. For example, AWS Enterprise support provides you with a concierge service where the main focus is to help you be successful in AWS. You get 24/7 technical support from engineers, tools, technology to automatically manage the health of your environment, a designated technical account manager to coordinate access to proactive and preventative programs, and AWS subject matter experts. For companies with a Business support plan, you can have access to infrastructure event management for an additional fee. However, all other proactive support programs, such as the well-architected reviews and operation reviews are exclusively available for companies who opted for Enterprise support. Here's a question to test your depth on AWS support plans. What if you need the most cost-effective AWS support plan with access to the AWS support API for programmatic case management, which support plan do you choose? AWS Developer, Enterprise, Enterprise On-Ramp, Basic, or Business? Will all AWS customers automatically have around-the-clock access to these features of the Basic support plan, Customer Service, 1-on-1 responses to account and billing questions, support forums, service health checks, documentation, whitepapers and best practice guides? In addition, customers with a Business or Enterprise support plan have access to these features. Use case guidance, so what AWS products, features, and services to use to best support your specific needs, AWS Trusted Advisor, which inspects customer environments, then Trusted Advisor identifies opportunities to save money, close security gaps, and improve system reliability and performance. An API for interacting with support center and Trusted Advisor. This API allows for automated support case management and Trusted Advisor operations, third-party software support, so help with Amazon EC2 instance operating systems and configuration, also help with the performance of the most popular third-party software components on AWS. So the Business plan would be the correct answer, because it is more cost effective than Enterprise support. Let's look at one more question on support plans. Which support plan allows an unlimited number of technical support cases to be opened: Basic, Business, or Developer? The most cost-effective support plan that offers a technical support with an unlimited number of cases that can be opened is the Developer support plan. Additionally, it provides you access to the seven core Trusted Advisor checks, and the Personal Health Dashboard where you get a personalized view of the health of AWS services and alerts you when your resources are impacted. There is also other support, such as all of the AWS documentation that exists along with AWS re:Post, whitepapers, blogs, and all of the other areas of AWS documentation. It is important to know where you can find the answers you are looking for. And here is a huge real-world tip and probably the best advice I received from my mentor. Learn how to Google and search for the answers or guidance you need. In other words, how is your Google kung fu? Mine's pretty strong. Where do you go if you need guided instructions on how to deploy a service for the first time? My first choice is AWS documentation. What do you look for for AWS best practices? My first choice is the AWS Well-Architected Framework, and then the AWS documentation for the service that I'm interested in. How do you seek community support when you have a very specific question about what you're building? My first choice would be AWS re:Post. Additionally, you can utilize AWS Training and Certification to help you build your knowledge and experience with AWS Skill Builder and all of our digital training and hands-on labs. Understanding where to find your documented answers is the first step in seeking support. After that, there are paths you can use to find assistance with more urgent matters. Evaluate how you could use the various teams within AWS Abuse, premium support, and billing or account support. When can you utilize the technical account managers, and how can they help you with your environment? Additionally, understand what the AWS Partner Network is and how you can use that too. For all of the support areas I've mentioned, it's important to be able to identify the sources of technical assistance, and knowledge you have at your service. The documented knowledge, community, professional services, the AWS Partner Network, and more are there to help our customers succeed. This area will be where you likely get the most practice and your Google kung fu will grow as you perform your searches. Knowing where to find supporting knowledge will probably be one of the most important things you can learn as you prepare for the exam and will greatly aid you as you use AWS. Let's get started with our seventh walkthrough question.