Amazon revamps cloud support

Amazon Web Services has introduced two new plans and cut prices for user support.

"We've added new Bronze and Platinum plans, reduced our prices, and increased our responsiveness," Amazon Web Services (AWS) lead web services evangelist Jeff Barr wrote in a blog post on Thursday announcing the move. "As we grow we have become more efficient."

The Bronze plan, aimed at individual users, gives customers a guarantee of response to filed queries — known as trouble tickets — regarding AWS APIs and AWS infrastructure within 12 business hours for normal queries and one day for low-priority tickets. Pricing is $49 (£31) per month.

The Platinum plan is intended for enterprise use. It is meter-based at 10 percent of AWS service usage, with a monthly $15,000 minimum, so prices for it start at $1,500 per month. Platinum customers' trouble tickets will recieve "white-glove" routing and will consequently jump ahead of queued tickets entered by Bronze, Silver and Gold customers. Critical tickets will be responded to within 15 minutes and urgent tickets within an hour. Each customer will have a named technical account manager (TAM) assigned to their account.

Maximum prices for Silver and Gold plans have been cut by 50 percent. Silver starts at a flat rate of $100 and transitions to a meter-based five percent of monthly AWS usage, rather than the previous rate of 10 percent. Gold starts at a flat rate of $400 and transitions to a meter-based 10 percent of usage for the first outlay up to $10,000 per month, rather than the previous 20 percent. Pricing will fall to seven percent if monthly outlay is between $10,000 and $80,000 and will fall further to five percent if monthly outlay passes $80,000.

UK pricing was not available at the time of writing.