AWS Support FAQs

General Questions

Support for Health Checks Questions

Trusted Advisor Questions

3rd Party Software Questions

Answers

Q. What is Amazon Web Services Support (AWS Support)?

AWS Support gives customers help on technical issues and additional confidence to operate their infrastructures in the cloud. Customers can choose a tier that meets their specific requirements, continuing the AWS tradition of providing the building blocks of success without bundling or long term commitments.

AWS Support is one-on-one, fast-response support from experienced technical support engineers. The service helps customers use AWS's products and features. With pay-by-the-month pricing and unlimited support cases, customers are freed from long-term commitments. Customers with operational issues or technical questions can contact a team of support engineers and receive predictable response times and personalized support.

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Q: How are the enhanced AWS Support tiers different from Basic Support?

AWS Basic Support offers all AWS customers access to our Resource Center, Service Health Dashboard, Product FAQs, Discussion Forums, and Support for Health Checks – at no additional charge. Customers who desire a deeper level of support can subscribe to AWS Support at the Developer, Business, or Enterprise level.

Customers who choose AWS Support gain one-on-one, fast-response support from AWS engineers. The service helps customers use AWS's products and features. With pay-by-the-month pricing and unlimited support cases, customers are freed from long-term commitments. Customers with operational issues or technical questions can contact a team of support engineers and receive a predictable response times and personalized support.

Select an AWS Support Plan

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Q: What types of issues are supported?

Your AWS Support covers development and production issues for AWS products and services, along with other key stack components.

  • "How to" questions about AWS service and features
  • Best practices to help you successfully integrate, deploy, and manage applications in the cloud
  • Troubleshooting API and AWS SDK issues
  • Troubleshooting operational or systemic problems with AWS resources
  • Issues with our Management console or other AWS tools
  • Problems detected by Health Checks
  • A number of 3rd Party Applications such as OS, web servers, email, databases, and storage configuration

AWS Support does not include:

  • Code development
  • Debugging custom software
  • Performing system administration tasks
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Q: What level of architecture support is provided by Support?

The level of architecture support provided varies by support level. Higher service levels provide progressively more support for the customer use case and application specifics.

Developer: Building Blocks

Guidance on how to use all AWS products, features, and services together. Includes guidance on best practices and generalized architectural advice.

Business: Use Case Guidance

Guidance on what AWS products, features, and services to use to best support your specific use cases. Includes guidance on optimizing AWS products and configuration to meet your specific needs.

Enterprise: Application Architecture

Consultative partnership supporting specific use cases and applications. Includes design reviews and architectural guidance. Enterprise-level customers support team includes a dedicated Technical Account Manager, and access to an AWS Solutions Architect.

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Q: I only use one or two services. Can I purchase support for just the one(s) I'm using?
No. Our support offering covers the entire AWS service portfolio. As many of our customers are using multiple infrastructure web services together within the same application, we’ve designed AWS Support with this in mind. We’ve found that the majority of support issues, among users of multiple services, relate to how multiple services are being used together. Our goal is to support your application as seamlessly as possible.
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Q: How many support cases can I initiate with AWS Support?
As many as you need.
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Q: How quickly will you get back to me?

Our first-contact response times are based on your chosen severity level for each case. We're committed to providing a response within the time frames described below.

Severity Level Response Time Available For
Critical 15 minutes Enterprise
Urgent 1 hour Business, Enterprise
High 4 hours Business, Enterprise
Normal 12 hours Developer, Business, Enterprise
Low 1 day Developer, Business, Enterprise

Developer-level customers can expect a support professional to be available Monday through Friday 8am-6pm in the customer time zone. Business and Enterprise-level customers can expect support any time, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year.

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Q: How quickly will you fix my issue?
That depends on your issue. The problems that application or service developers encounter vary widely, making it difficult to predict issue resolution times. We can say, however, that we'll work closely with you to resolve your issue as quickly as possible.
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Q: How do I contact you?

From the Support Center, all Developer level support customers on the can open a case online with "Web Support" using your web browser. Business and Enterprise-level customers may also Click to Call to have AWS contact you at any convenient phone number or strike up a conversation with one of our engineers via Chat. Enterprise-level customers also have a direct access to their dedicated Technical Account Manager.

Basic Support customers can Report an Issue if they see a system-wide problem that they believe originates with AWS. Additionally, Basic customers will find account and billing support on the Contact Us page.

Support for Health Checks

Health Checks monitors the health and status of AWS Services and the status of these checks are displayed within the AWS Management Console. When a check does not pass, customers will be given the option to open a high priority ticket with Technical Support for assistance. Support for Health Checks is currently available for EC2 and can be accessed on the instance "Status Check" tab. Click here for more details.

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Q: My business needs more named support contacts. How do I add them?
You can manage your named support contacts from the Support Center. Customers on the Developer-level tiers can specify one named support contact; Business can enter up to five, and Enterprise-level can enter an unlimited number.
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Q: I'm not in the US. Can I sign up for AWS Support?
Yes, AWS Support is a global organization. Any AWS customer may sign up for and use AWS Support.
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Q: Do you speak my language?
AWS Support is available in English and Japanese.
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Q: How do I access Japanese Support?
To access Japanese Support, subscribers should select Japanese as their language preference from the dropdown at the top right of any AWS web page. Once your language preference is set to Japanese, all support inquiries will be sent to our Japanese support team.
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Q: Who should use AWS Support?
We recommend all AWS customers use AWS Support to ensure a seamless experience leveraging AWS infrastructure services. We have created multiple tiers to fit your unique technical needs and budget.
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Q: How do I offer support for my end customers' AWS-related issues?
If an issue is related to your AWS account, we'll be happy to help you. For problems with a resource provisioned under their own accounts, your customers will need to contact us directly. Due to security and privacy concerns we can only discuss specific details with the account holder of the resource in question. You many also inquire about becoming an AWS Partner which offers different end-customer support options, find out more by clicking here.
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Q: I use an application someone else built on Amazon Web Services. Can I use AWS Support?
If the application uses resources provisioned under your AWS account, you can use AWS Support. First, we'll help you to determine whether the issue lies with an AWS resource or with the third-party application. Depending on that outcome, we'll either work to resolve your issue or let you know to contact the application developer for continued troubleshooting.
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Q: How can I get started with AWS Support?
You can add AWS Support during the sign up process for any AWS product. Or simply Select an AWS Support Plan
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Q: How much does AWS Support cost?
AWS Support offers differing levels of service for a variety of budgets. The Developer-level tier is fixed rate, and the Business and Enterprise-level tiers provide discounts as your AWS usage grows. See our pricing table for more details. With AWS Support, you have the flexibility to choose the support tiers that makes sense for you.
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Q: Why does my AWS Support bill spike when I purchase EC2 and RDS Reserved Instances and ElasticCache Reserved Cache Nodes?

When you pre-pay for compute needs with EC2 and RDS Reserved Instances and ElastiCache Reserved Cache Nodes and are enrolled in an AWS Support tier, the one-time fee for your prepaid resources will be included in the calculation of your AWS usage in the month you purchase them. For customers who sign up for Enterprise and Business-level support after purchasing reserved resources, a prorated portion of the one-time fee paid will be included in the first month of AWS Support. The hourly usage charges for reserved resources will be included in the calculation of your AWS usage each month.

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Q: How will I be charged and billed for my use of AWS Support?

On the first of each month (and upon signup) you'll be billed a minimum monthly service charge. If your usage-based charges exceed the minimum monthly service charge, you'll be billed for the difference at the end of the month. End of the month bills, being dated on the first of the following month, will thus reflect both the current month's usage-based charges as well as the following month's minimum monthly service charge.

Reserved resource customers (EC2 and RDS Reserved Instances and ElastiCache Reserved Cache Nodes) should expect their prepaid amounts to be included in the usage-based component during the month they are purchased.

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Q: How do I cancel my AWS Support subscription?

You can cancel your subscription to any of AWS's paid, opt-in services in three steps.

  1. Sign in to your "Manage Your Account" page.
  2. Scroll down to "Cancel Selected Services".
  3. Select "AWS Support" in the drop down list.
  4. Click "Cancel Service".

Your next bill may include usage from the period before your service was canceled. Those charges will not be pro-rated.

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Q: Can I sign up for AWS Support, receive assistance, and then cancel the subscription? If so, will I be charged a pro-rated amount?
You are obligated to pay for a minimum of one month of support each time you register to receive the service. While you may see a pro-rated refund when you cancel the service, your account will be charged again at the end of the month to account for the minimum subscription fee. We reserve the right to refuse to provide AWS Support to any customer that frequently registers for and terminates the service.
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Q: What is Infrastructure Event Management (IEM)?
AWS Infrastructure Event Management is a short term engagement with AWS Support, available as part of the Enterprise-level Support product offering, and available for additional purchase for Business-level Support subscribers. AWS Infrastructure Event Management will partner with your technical and project resources to gain a deep understanding of your use case and provide architectural and scaling guidance for an event. Common use case examples for AWS Event Management include advertising launches, new product launches, and infrastructure migrations to AWS.
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Q: How does Chat support work?

Chat is just another way, in addition to phone or email, to gain access to Technical Support engineers. By clicking on the chat support icon in the Support Center, a chat session will be initiated through your browser. This provides a real-time, one-on-one interaction with our support engineers and allows additional information and links to be shared for faster issue resolution.

Offering support via chat is new for AWS, but not for Amazon.com. We have taken the same chat capabilities currently in use by retail customers and made it available for AWS technical support. Business and Enterprise-level customers can access chat capabilities within the Support Center. Support users can also launch a chat session from an individual case or the Contact Us section of the AWS web site.

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Q: What are the best practices for fault tolerance?
Customers frequently ask us if there is anything they should be doing to prepare for a major event that could affect a single availability zone (AZ). Our response to this question is that customers should follow general best practices related to managing highly available deployments (e.g. having a backup strategy, distributing resources across zones). The following links provide a good starting point:
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Q: How do I configure Identity and Access Management (IAM) for support?
For details on how you can configure your IAM users to allow/deny access to AWS Support resources, please click here.
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Support for Health Checks

Q: What is Support for Health Checks?

Health Checks monitors the health and status of AWS Services and the status of these checks are displayed within the AWS Management Console. When a check does not pass, all customers will be given the option to open a high priority ticket with Technical Support for assistance. Services that currently included under Support for Health Checks include EC2 and EBS.

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Q: Which AWS services provide access to support through Support for Health Checks?
Support for Health checks currently covers three health check scenarios that occur within the AWS Management Console - EC2 unreachable, EBS disabled i/o, and EBS stuck in attaching.
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Q: How can I get support if an EC2 instance is unreachable?

If an EC2 instance remains in an unreachable state for more than 20 minutes, a button will appear that allows all AWS customers to open a case. Most of the details about your case will be auto-populated in the ticket, such as instance ID, region, and customer information, but also allows customers to add additional context with a free form text description.

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Q: How can I get support if an EBS volume is stuck in attaching or has disabled i/o?
EBS volumes that have a health status of disabled i/o or are stuck in attaching will display a "Troubleshoot Now" button. The customer will be presented with a number of self-remediation options that could potentially fix the problem without the need to contact support. If after following all applicable steps the EBS volume is still failing the health check, click the "Contact Support" button to open a case.
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Q: What is the response time for my Health Check support case?
Support cases opened through the console will be responded to as high priority cases.
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Q: How do I check the status of my case after it has been opened?
After you submit a case the button will change from “Contact Support” to “View Case”. You can view your case status on any of the affected instances by clicking the “View Case” button and you will be taken to a ticket status page.
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Q: Do I have to open a ticket for each instance that is unresponsive?
You can, but don’t need to. You can include additional context and instance IDs in the text description submitted with your initial case.
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Q: Why must an EC2 instance be unreachable for 20 minutes and not just allow customers to open tickets immediately?
Most reachability issues are resolved by automated processes in less than 20 minutes and will not require any action on the part of the customer. If the instance is still unreachable after this timeframe has passed, then opening a case will bring the situation to the attention of our technical support team for assistance.
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Q: Can any of my Identity and Access Management (IAM) users open a ticket?
Any user can create and manage a SHC case using their primary credentials. IAM users associated with accounts that subscribe to Business and Enterprise-level support can also create and manage a SHC case.
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Trusted Advisor Questions

Q: What is AWS Trusted Advisor?
AWS Trusted Advisor is a web based application that draws upon best practices learned from AWS’ aggregated operational history of serving hundreds of thousands of AWS customers. The AWS Trusted Advisor inspects your AWS environment and makes recommendations when opportunities exist to save money, improve system performance, or close security gaps.
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Q: How do I access Trusted Advisor?
Customers with Business or Enterprise-level support can access Trusted Advisor through the Support Center. Click the Trusted Advisor icon to view your current report
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Q: What made you choose these checks/recommendations over others?
Every check we implemented in the release was vetted for accuracy, consistency, and usefulness to our customers. If a check didn’t make the grade it was not included, and won’t be until it meets the above criteria. A tremendous amount of data and research is required to ensure we are making the right recommendations based on best practices and historical values. We have identified well over a hundred possible checks for the future and will continue to add them over time.
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Q: Does AWS Trusted Advisor monitor my usage? Can Amazon see what I’m doing with AWS?
AWS Trusted Advisor respects your privacy just as all Amazon Web Services do. We will never have access to your data or the software running on your EC2 instances without your consent.
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Q: What does AWS Trusted Advisor check?

The AWS Trusted Advisor Program includes an ever expanding list of checks within the following three categories:

  • Cost Optimization - makes recommendations that can potentially save you money by highlighting unused resources and opportunities to reduce your bill.
  • Security - identifies security specific settings that could make your AWS solution less secure.
  • Fault Tolerance - provides a number of checks that help increase the resiliency of your AWS solution by highlighting redundancy shortfalls, current service limits, and over-utilized resources.

For more information on Trusted Advisor and an up to date listing of checks, please click here.

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3rd Party Software Questions

Q: What 3rd Party Software is supported?
AWS Support Business and Enterprise levels include Beta support for common operating systems and common application stack components. The experience and diversity of our support team often allows us to provide guidance for a large number of other applications beyond what is listed below and we will help when we can.
  • Operating Systems including Amazon Linux, Ubuntu, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Linux, and Microsoft Windows 2003 R2, 2008, 2008 R2 and 2012
  • Common application stack components including Apache and IIS web servers, the Amazon SDKs, Sendmail, Postfix, and FTP
  • Databases (MySQL, SQL Server), disk management tools (LVM, RAID), and VPN Solutions (OpenVPN, RRAS)
  • To provide feedback on how we can improve our 3rd Party Software Support - Beta, including requests for prioritization of additional Application Infrastructure components, please click here.
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Q: What if you can’t resolve my 3rd Party Software issue?
In the case that we are not able to resolve your issue we will collaborate with, or refer you to, the appropriate vendor support for that product. In some cases you may need to have a support relationship with the vendor to receive support from them.
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Q: What are some of the most common reasons a customer might require 3rd party software support?
  • Installation and Configuration
  • Performance Tuning
  • Architecting for Failure (e.g. Backups and Failover)
  • Application and System Troubleshooting
  • Security Questions
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