Amazon revamps cloud computing support

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has introduced fresh cloud computing support plans and cut prices on some of its offerings.

First off, Amazon has reduced prices on existing Silver and Gold support plans by 50 per cent.

This means those who want a Silver contract, which offers one-to-one online support with four-hour response time as long as its between 8am and 6pm, will either pay $100 per month (64.50) or five per cent of the companies' usage, depending on which comes out larger.

The Gold deal, which offers 24-hour support seven days a week, a response time of an hour and phone support, now starts at $400 per month or 10 per cent of the usage. Further reductions in the percentage, down to five per cent, can be enjoyed if the customer's AWS usage grows.

Two other plans have also been added to the support line up, in the form of Bronze and Platinum packages.

Bronze is aimed at individual developers and costs $49 per month, whilst the Platinum plan is targeted at enterprise customers with a price of 10 per cent of AWS usage and a $15,000 monthly minimum.

Platinum customers will get a technical account manager to your account, who will help with reviews of AWS usage and performance, whilst assisting with new launches.

Furthermore, requests for help will get "white-glove" routing, meaning customers will get to push in front of tickets entered at the other levels. Critical tickets will be dealt with inside 15 minutes and urgent tickets within an hour.

Elsewhere, Amazon has lowered its response times across the board.

"The maximum initial response time for normal severity cases has been reduced from 24 business hours to 12 business hours," said AWS lead web services evangelist Jeff Barr.

"The maximum initial response time for low severity cases has been reduced from 48 business hours to 24 business hours."

Read on for our look at whether 2011 will be the year when cloud computing really kicks off.