What’s the first thing Amazon does to counter the launch of Google App Engine? Makes sure its current customers are happy just where they are by providing two premium tech support packages.
AWS users can now pay for either a silver or gold level of support. Both packages offer “fast and predictable response times, an unlimited number of support cases, and personalized support from our team of developer support engineers.” The gold version takes things up a notch by also affording developers with round the clock phone support and a max 1 hour response time to urgent requests.
The silver package will cost $100 per month or $0.10 per dollar spent on monthly AWS usage, whichever is higher. The gold level is either $400 per month or $0.20 per monthly usage up to a certain charge, after which the rate declines.
Amazon hasn’t been slacking in terms of releasing new features, but we can expect that App Engine to drive even more rapid innovation from Seattle-based retail giant.
All this tells me is that you ” need to pay ” for your support if you are using amazon web services.
Hang around in the aws forums and you can see the large number of customer complaints. So, its only fair that amazon charges for support
WTF are support packages? Damn I’m pretty.
@Senthil
You know you get what you pay for :)…
Althought if you pay for Amazon web services you should get already a decent support without paying more, I guess.
Reliability is king, for free or for a fee…
This shouldn’t be unexpected. And Google will need to do the same, if not with greater options, given how much more of *your* application runs in *their* environment.
Now the hard part: delivering on the support.
But is this the same thing as an SLA? To me it seems like an SLA is the more crucial piece to get Enterprise engagement.
At least with Amazon it is your data…
..The Google is making a ton of monry off of your private info…
….The Google should be paying *you* a cut of the ton of money they make off of their access to all your searches…and their acces to all the web pags you visit that are part of the DoubleClick network…
Smart move. If there is one thing Google doesn’t do, it’s customer service.
This is great! The thing that’s been really missing with cloud computing is accessibility of reliable service and customer support. The whole cloud thing makes you a little uneasy when you bet your next business on it and there in no-one you can call and no response guarantees…
We’ve toyed with the idea of going with EC2 for a while but decided to go with Engine Yard (so far fantastic service) instead for the above reasons.
Amazon’s offer and the resulting pressure on the industry inevitably increases the options for quality hosting with reliable service. Great news for start-ups and small companies that can’t jump into a huge SLA’s with a premium hosting provider.
AWS shucks…. it’s great that they won’t take all this sitting comfy on the cloud.
…alain
http://www.morphexchange.com
Little pricey in my opinion….
I just like amazons affiliate program…
I just love Amazon’s affiliate program!
I hope that’s not a way to overlook normal users. If I’m paying for Amazon Web Services, I normally do deserve proper support, especially when Amazon is promoting it for overtaking my storage and heavy processing. Does that mean if I dont have the gold or silver support I have to wait 24-48 hours to get my problem fixed?