How to Choose the Ideal Option for Your AWS Support Plan

There are several options for AWS support you can choose from. Many of you will probably even have some level of existing arrangement in place with one of these:

2. Working with a Partner

This is the most common option taken by the majority of businesses. You may well already have a partner in place responsible for supporting your AWS deployments. Amazon does encourage the use of technology partners within its cloud ecosystem, much like Microsoft has done for many years before it.

Partners come in all shapes and sizes, offering a variety of different services. These organisations exist to prevent Amazon from having to get too hands-on with its cloud customers.

Through its partner network for AWS support, Amazon pairs you with partners at the appropriate level for the size of your organisation or cloud investment.

Small Specialist Partners or Consultants

These will often be one-man bands, or small teams made up of a handful of people.

If you work with a partner like this, you’re essentially adding a new member to your team who will be available when you need them. But the reliability of that team member will be limited, as they’ll always be juggling commitments to their other clients with only a finite amount of time available.

These partners won’t be able to scale the services they offer, either. So, if you find your business growing, and your cloud environment growing with it, you may outgrow the level of support your partner is able to provide you.

Medium-Sized Partners

The mid-tier partners will have several teams within their organisations, often focusing on different specialties or specific areas of the cloud ecosystem.

For example, some partners’ teams may focus on certain Amazon products only like virtual machines.

Because of that, you’ll need to ensure that you’re getting expertise that aligns with the requirements of your unique cloud environment.

Another important thing to note here is these medium-sized partners usually operate on a project or consultancy-based model, where support is provided by a dedicated team assigned to you.

This is highly preferable when compared to the impersonal support offered by Amazon directly.

Large-Scale Partners

The larger partners often have a close working relationship with Amazon. These could even be the direct re-seller who you procured your cloud from.

Their processes, and the conventions of their organisation, will probably mirror that of Amazon closely, and they’ll have a great deal of resources available to ensure you receive comprehensive support.

However, some of these partners are so big, with so many clients, that you’ll run into similar challenges to those faced when dealing directly with Amazon.

It’s also possible these large consultancies will have a core business, recruiting smaller specialist partners to provide services on a white-label basis.

3. Maintaining and Supporting Your Own Cloud Environment (DIY)

Of course, taking on the role of maintaining and supporting your cloud environment with your own in-house resources is another approach.

Saving on the cost of a partner may seem like a financially sensible option on the surface. But you’ll find this far more complicated than expected. By the time that becomes evident, it’s often too late.

Taking on the burden of cloud support yourself also comes with the highest level of risk in some ways.

The drain on internal resources that occurs with full-time cloud management is often unsustainable for smaller and medium-sized businesses, as well.

Another possibility here is to hire a lone consultant to join your team and support your cloud based on a daily rate, but these are often very expensive.

You must ensure you select the AWS support plan which can best meet your business’s unique requirements.

And there are some clear advantages and disadvantages for each option, some of which will resonate with you more than others.

We’ve weighed them up against each other here to help make the choice an easier one for you.

AWS Support Direct from Amazon

Remember, Amazon is a huge global corporation with hundreds of thousands of customers using its infrastructure-as-a-service offerings.

The cloud is so vast, and you can’t expect the provider to be hands-on in supporting each of its customers individually.

The Pros:

• You’re working with the provider who has built the technology. Therefore, they should be able to help you solve any issues once you do eventually reach them for support
• They have more man-power and technical capabilities than most partners
• They often offer one-hour response or ticket turn-around times
• They have a large global support team with extensive documentation and information at their disposal
• 24-hour support is always available
• Your cloud platform will automatically be kept fully up-to-date.

The Cons:

• The service will be impersonal, from a generic playbook, and not specific to your unique issue or need
• You’ll be placed in a long queue any time you raise an issue
• You’ll have to talk to a different rep every time
• They’ll know little about your business and your IT infrastructure
• They won’t have familiarity with any custom applications you’ve deployed
• They’ll often automatically class an issue as resolved after running a number of standard checks, without providing any real help beyond their minimum obligation
• Because of the huge number of customers relying on them, the support available is limited to what can be found as common ground to offer across all their customers
• If you do take on more dedicated support packages, the cost will be extremely high.

The verdict?

If you’re relying on a global tech giant like Amazon to manage your AWS support, the level of service will often depend on how much you’re able to pay for it.

In most cases, you’ll leave yourself with only the basics to fall back on, which also means you’re accepting a high level of risk.

Furthermore, the total time it takes for them to help you solve a problem will often be longer, making it harder to prevent loss of business continuity.

We’d strongly recommend a more personal, attentive, and cost-effective approach to cloud support, especially for most small and medium-sized businesses.

AWS Support Partners

Partners are generally very helpful and reliable. But it’s important to remember each partner organisation is limited by its own resources, workload, and technical capabilities.

The Pros

• They’ll have a structured approach to AWS support with best practices in place
• Many will have a team in place with valuable experience and expertise
• Most partners will be certified in cloud support
• You can see evidence of their credibility and capability through their existing clients
• They’ll work with you in a similar agreement to a traditional IT support contract
• If you have a problem, simply raise a ticket and they’ll respond ASAP
• You’ll likely work with a dedicated rep who will get to know your business well
• Many partners will also offer additional services for consultancy and projects if you need it.

The Cons

• Their primary channel will be a support desk, which probably won’t give you access to their technical people
• The response times could be longer than you like, depending on the size of the organisation
• They may also have a high volume of clients all battling for their time and attention
• Most partners will only have one or two cloud experts, and they will usually be busy with high-profile projects
• They won’t have any advanced technology solutions or automation capabilities to optimise the performance of your cloud
• If you rep takes time off, you’ll be switched over to an unfamiliar rep who will be learning your business almost from scratch
• If they face any technical issues, it may have a knock-on effect to your own business continuity by no fault of your own.

The Verdict?

The approach of working with a support partner is a good option.

It’s often more cost-effective and reliable than working directly with Amazon, and you’ll be gaining a great deal of experience in cloud maintenance and support.

AWS Partners add to the capability of your in-house team, but they can only do so much for you while juggling several other clients.

While we’d advise that working with a partner is a smarter choice than relying directly on your cloud provider, it’s worth doing some more digging to find an optimum approach.

‘DIY’ Cloud Support

Of course, you can always leave the responsibility of supporting your cloud infrastructure to your existing IT team.

To go back to the earlier point of rushing through cloud deployments due to the pressures of the pandemic, this became fare more common during the 2020 lockdowns.

If you’ve decided to leave your cloud support in the hands of an in-house developer or IT manager, we understand it may have been a stop-gap or necessity at the time. But, as mentioned earlier, the risk here is very high.

You may be facing, or will eventually begin to experience, challenges in areas like maintenance, management, performance, and over-spending on monthly costs.

You’re also putting yourself in a position where you’ll need to spend significant time and money training your staff in skills specific to the cloud (or hiring a new employee entirely).

The Pros

• Your cloud support is entirely under your own control, and done on your own terms
• Your business’s issues will be the only priority of your cloud support team
• As your team is in-house, you’ll have full visibility into your cloud environment at all times
• You’ll also be fully aware of your own capabilities and limits, allowing you to plan accordingly.

The Cons

• Your staff will require costly and time-consuming training in cloud support
• Once trained, those staff will likely be able to command a higher wage
• Those staff could even be poached to leave for a partner or consultancy organisation, then the investment in them would be wasted
• Every issue you get with your cloud will be a new one to your support team, as they’ll be learning as they go
• Even though your support is in-house, you’ll still need to resource three eight-hour shifts if you want 24/7 cloud support, plus holiday cover
• There are so many aspects to holistic cloud support and management, that several employees with different specialisms will likely be required for larger IT infrastructures
• As the AWS cloud platform evolves, your cloud support team will need to evolve with it.

The Verdict?

As mentioned, DIY cloud support is a highly risky approach with a long list of potential challenges involved.

The most important issue to consider here is the amount of time and money you’ll need to invest, just to reach a basic level of support.

Without proper monitoring and optimisation of your cloud usage, you’ll also be susceptible to drastic over-spending and surprises on each monthly bill.

And even with excellent training, your team will be lacking experience. With technology as complex as the cloud, this is a position we’d strongly advise against putting your business into.