Introduces Multiple New Features Including Alerts When Opportunities
Exist to Cut Cost or Improve Application Performance, Chat
Functionality, and Anytime Access to Customer Service Based on Automatic
System Health Checks
SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun. 14, 2012--
Amazon Web Services LLC (AWS), an Amazon.com Company (NASDAQ: AMZN),
today announced expanded free support for all AWS customers, reduced
pricing on premium support plans and multiple new features to help
customers better interact with and improve their use of AWS, including
chat functionality and proactive alerts when opportunities exist to save
money, improve system performance, or close security gaps. AWS Support
is a fast-response support channel that is staffed around the clock with
experienced and technical support engineers. For more information on the
pricing and the new options, visit http://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/.
As part of today’s announcement of the new support features, the broad
selection of support offerings offered by AWS have been renamed to
better align with the customer’s need or use case. All plans include
support for an unlimited number of cases, are available worldwide, have
no long term contracts, and can be cancelled at any time.
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Basic (Expanded free tier): Upon signup for AWS, all
customers are automatically enrolled in Basic support for free.
Added features in this tier include immediate, around-the-clock access
to customer service by email or phone for billing and account issues,
and technical support for system health issues. Customers continue to
have access to technical FAQs, best practices guides, the AWS Service
Health Dashboard, and the AWS Developer Forums, which are monitored
and responded to by AWS support engineers.
-
Developer ($49/month and 1:1 customer support): Previously
called the Bronze tier, the Developer tier includes all
components of the Basic tier, plus the following: 12-hour response
time to support cases submitted, 1:1 customer support for any
AWS-related question, and access to AWS Technical Support Engineers
via email through the AWS online support center during local business
hours to help configure, operate, and maintain core AWS services and
features. The Developer plan is $49 per month.
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Business (Access to AWS Trusted Advisor): Previously
called the Gold tier, the Business tier includes all components
of the Basic and Developer tiers, plus the following: one-hour
response time to support cases submitted and support engineers
available 24/7 via phone, chat or email. In addition to chat
capabilities, new features include access to AWS Trusted Advisor, a
program that monitors AWS infrastructure services, identifies
customers’ usage patterns, and notifies customers when opportunities
exist to save money, improve system performance, or close security
gaps. Customers also receive support for the most common third-party
software running on AWS. The Business tier minimum pricing has been
reduced from $400 to $100 per month and a 3% usage-based pricing tier
has been added to the existing pricing tiers of 10%, 7%, and 5%.
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Enterprise (New pricing based on usage vs. flat fee): Previously
called the Platinum tier, the Enterprise tier provides
customers with all of the features of the Business tier, plus
15-minute response time for mission-critical issues, and a
dedicated Technical Account Manager who is intimately familiar with
the customer’s specific AWS architecture. Technical Account Managers
will also conduct periodic business reviews for infrastructure
planning, report metrics, collaborate on launches, and connect
customers to AWS Solutions Architects as needed. The Trusted Advisor
program is also available to all Enterprise tier customers. The
Enterprise tier minimum pricing has been reduced from a flat 10% usage
fee to usage-based pricing tiers of 10%, 7%, 5% and 3%.
"Amazon has been passionate about customer service since we started the
company 17 years ago,” said Brent Jaye, General Manager of AWS Support.
“Putting customers first is part of our DNA. We not only employ talented
support engineers all over the world, but also build technology that
enables them to provide proactive and helpful information to our
customers. Our new Trusted Advisor program is a good example of that --
we use technology to determine if customers have security adjustments
they should make, or if they’re not architected as fault tolerant as
they might want to be, or if they have under-utilized instances that
they can terminate and save money. We then use both technology and
support professionals to surface this information to customers.”
Customers are using AWS Support for various purposes, ranging from
technical support for new product launches, to taking advantage of a
Technical Account Manager to architect optimally on AWS, to identifying
areas where they can use AWS more efficiently.
“We have used AWS Platinum Support since we began our cloud migration
process 18 months ago," said Lex Crosett, Vice President Product
Development and CIO, Earth Networks. “During this process, we
consolidated four colocation data centers with 750 servers and built a
development, QA, and production facility on AWS. With our Technical
Account Manager, we had quick access to the service teams resulting in
rapid access to useful new features in DynamoDB and Cloudfront, among
others, that continue to improve our scalability and cost economics. AWS
Support is without a doubt our highest functioning, most customer
success oriented vendor team. They are much more than a support team,
they function as a strategic partner and trusted advisor to us.”
“Given the extent of our use of AWS, Netflix really benefitted from the
AWS Enterprise Support model,” said Yury Izrailevsky, VP, Cloud
Computing and Platform Engineering at Netflix. “AWS Support and our
dedicated Technical Account Manager continuously work with our teams to
ensure the availability, cost effectiveness and security of our
infrastructure running on AWS. This translates to providing a great
experience for our customers. We’ve been pleased with the technical
skills of the support team, but also their ability to act as a central
point of contact to engage resources throughout AWS as needed.”
This year’s Super Bowl was interactive and viewers used the Shazam App
to engage with all aspects of the event – from the game, to the ads and
the half-time show starring Madonna. To ensure that the application
provided an ideal customer experience, Shazam used AWS Enterprise
Support. “A large contributor to the success of Shazam’s Super Bowl
event was the work done beforehand with the help of AWS Enterprise
Support,” said Jason Titus, CTO, Shazam. “Working hand in hand with a
dedicated Technical Account Manager, the support team provided real-time
assistance, ensuring our application would scale to meet the anticipated
demand of the event. In addition to the upfront support, the AWS
Enterprise Support team also provided around the clock monitoring and
assistance from the US and Europe during the event, and had AWS
engineering resources on standby should their assistance be required.”
As part of our AWS Business Support we’ve been able to take advantage of
AWS Trusted Advisor,” said Spencer Colson, Program Manager at
Smartronix. “The system provides us reports of our usage and has been a
great way to identify opportunities to optimize our infrastructure and
help us make changes accordingly. By using the information supplied by
AWS Trusted Advisor, we are taking steps to reduce our overall costs by
optimizing the use of Reserved Instances and right-sizing systems based
on utilization trends. We are excited to now have access to a
self-service interface where we can review updated Trusted Advisor
recommendations at any time.”
For more information on AWS Support pricing and options, visit http://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/
About Amazon Web Services
Launched in 2006, Amazon Web Services (AWS) began exposing key
infrastructure services to businesses in the form of web services -- now
widely known as cloud computing. The ultimate benefit of cloud
computing, and AWS, is the ability to leverage a new business model and
turn capital infrastructure expenses into variable costs. Businesses no
longer need to plan and procure servers and other IT resources weeks or
months in advance. Using AWS, businesses can take advantage of Amazon's
expertise and economies of scale to access resources when their business
needs them, delivering results faster and at a lower cost. Today, Amazon
Web Services provides a highly reliable, scalable, low-cost
infrastructure platform in the cloud that powers hundreds of thousands
of enterprise, government and startup customers businesses in 190
countries around the world. AWS offers over 28 different services,
including Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), Amazon Simple
Storage Service (Amazon S3) and Amazon Relational Database Service
(Amazon RDS). AWS services are available to customers from data center
locations in the U.S., Brazil, Europe, Japan and Singapore.
About Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle,
opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and today offers Earth's
Biggest Selection. Amazon.com, Inc. seeks to be Earth's most
customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything
they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the
lowest possible prices. Amazon.com and other sellers offer millions of
unique new, refurbished and used items in categories such as Books;
Movies, Music & Games; Digital Downloads; Electronics & Computers; Home
& Garden; Toys, Kids & Baby; Grocery; Apparel, Shoes & Jewelry; Health &
Beauty; Sports & Outdoors; and Tools, Auto & Industrial. Amazon Web
Services provides Amazon's developer customers with access to
in-the-cloud infrastructure services based on Amazon's own back-end
technology platform, which developers can use to enable virtually any
type of business. The new latest generation Kindle is the lightest, most
compact Kindle ever and features the same 6-inch, most advanced
electronic ink display that reads like real paper even in bright
sunlight. Kindle Touch is a new addition to the Kindle family with an
easy-to-use touch screen that makes it easier than ever to turn pages,
search, shop, and take notes - still with all the benefits of the most
advanced electronic ink display. Kindle Touch 3G is the top of the line
e-reader and offers the same new design and features of Kindle Touch,
with the unparalleled added convenience of free 3G. Kindle Fire is the
Kindle for movies, TV shows, music, books, magazines, apps, games and
web browsing with all the content, free storage in the Amazon Cloud,
Whispersync, Amazon Silk (Amazon's new revolutionary cloud-accelerated
web browser), vibrant color touch screen, and powerful dual-core
processor.
Amazon and its affiliates operate websites, including www.amazon.com,
www.amazon.co.uk,
www.amazon.de,
www.amazon.co.jp,
www.amazon.fr,
www.amazon.ca,
www.amazon.cn,
www.amazon.it,
and www.amazon.es.
As used herein, "Amazon.com," "we," "our" and similar terms include
Amazon.com, Inc., and its subsidiaries, unless the context indicates
otherwise.
Forward-Looking Statements
This announcement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning
of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the
Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Actual results may differ significantly
from management's expectations. These forward-looking statements involve
risks and uncertainties that include, among others, risks related to
competition, management of growth, new products, services and
technologies, potential fluctuations in operating results, international
expansion, outcomes of legal proceedings and claims, fulfillment center
optimization, seasonality, commercial agreements, acquisitions and
strategic transactions, foreign exchange rates, system interruption,
inventory, government regulation and taxation, payments and fraud. More
information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com's
financial results is included in Amazon.com's filings with the
Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recent Annual
Report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings.
Source: Amazon.com, Inc.
Amazon.com, Inc.
Media Hotline, 206-266-7180
www.amazon.com/pr
