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open-guides / og-aws

📙 Amazon Web Services — a practical guide
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Section on how to get support, paid and unpaid #324

Open tomharrisonjr opened 7 years ago

tomharrisonjr commented 7 years ago

AWS offers technical support at several levels. All users can post messages on forums, and they are searchable within AWS and via Google. The information very often outdated, infrequently answered by AWS staff, and sometimes incorrect.

Paid options include developer support, business support and enterprise support.

https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/compare-plans/

Tip: suck it up and buy business support if you have a business relying on AWS. When bad things happen, you'll have options. It is not uncommon for situations to arise that require rapid response -- even some that are caused by AWS. The cost for business support is 10% (with a sliding scale for larger deployments), which is by no means trivial, but the alternative is worse.

Tip: You can get faster response when needed by using the Chat option -- once connected to a person, you can move to phone if needed, or email which tends to be more effective over time.

jlevy commented 7 years ago

@tomharrisonjr this seems to be more or less covered already here: https://github.com/open-guides/og-aws#getting-help-and-support

Specific additions/corrections/expansions are welcome, either discussed here or as (focused) PRs.

The chat tip may be a good addition by itself.

The tip about always using business support is probably not balanced enough. Serious businesses in even in the low-millions of spend level do run without business support.

Thanks!

tomharrisonjr commented 7 years ago

Agreed on all points.

With regard to support, I have been part of startups not having the money to pay, and done ok for the most part. I have also worked at companies having large and competent operations teams who both have the skills and experience to manage a complex fleet of equipment, and the willingness and maturity to accept that AWS is a different beast than the on-prem or co-lo facilities they have managed in the past. There are middle-ground cases, and I have been in several of them. My point is mainly that there are indeed valid use-cases for support; I have found the quality greatly improved than at my prior employer, and invaluable in cases where I am truly stuck.

Perhaps the tip would be better stated as

Tip: for companies used to running their own data centers, it's worth recognizing that while AWS is similar in many ways, it does not provide the same degree of control that traditional operations groups may expect. It is also the case that there are times where the cause of problems, in a virtualized environment, are necessarily more opaque. For companies just starting with AWS or not having the resources or skills needed, the support option can be well worth the price, and cancelled when the service is no longer required.

QuinnyPig commented 7 years ago

@tomharrisonjr Did this ever get turned into a PR?