Billing, Pricing, and Support · Topic 4 of 4
Technical Resources and Partners
Find AWS technical help for CLF-C02: documentation, re:Post, Trusted Advisor, Health Dashboard, the Partner Network, Marketplace and Professional Services.
- 5 min
- Documentation, whitepapers and the Architecture Center are free technical references.
- re:Post and the Knowledge Center provide community and FAQ style answers.
- Trusted Advisor checks your account against best practices, and the full checks need a higher support plan.
What it is
Beyond paid support plans, AWS offers many resources that help you learn, solve problems and find expert help. Some are free and open to everyone.
They fall into groups: documentation and community answers, tools that check your own account, training, and people or companies who can do work for you.
The exam asks you to name the right resource for a given need, such as where to find a best practice guide or who to ask for hands on help.
How it works
Learning and documentation
| Resource | What it offers |
|---|---|
| AWS documentation | Guides and references for every service |
| AWS whitepapers and guides | Longer papers on architecture, security and best practice |
| AWS Architecture Center | Reference architectures and diagrams |
| AWS Prescriptive Guidance | Step by step patterns for common technical tasks such as migration |
| AWS Solutions Library | Ready made solutions you can deploy and adapt |
| AWS Skill Builder | Online learning courses and labs |
| AWS Training and Certification | Courses and exams, such as the Cloud Practitioner certification |
Community and self help
AWS re:Post is a community question and answer site where users and AWS experts answer technical questions. The AWS Knowledge Center collects answers to frequently asked support questions.
These are free. Try them first when you have a how to question.
Tools that look at your account
| Tool | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| AWS Trusted Advisor | Checks your account against best practices in areas such as cost optimization, security, fault tolerance, performance and service quotas |
| AWS Health Dashboard | Shows the health of AWS services and events that affect your own resources |
| AWS Well-Architected Tool | Reviews a workload against the Well-Architected pillars |
Trusted Advisor gives recommendations. The set of checks you see depends on your support plan, as described on the support plan page.
The AWS Health Dashboard has a service view of the overall state of AWS and an account view of events that affect your own resources, such as a planned maintenance on a server you use.
Getting help from people
| Resource | Who they are |
|---|---|
| AWS Support | Technical help through support cases, by plan level |
| AWS Technical Account Manager | A named adviser on the Enterprise plans |
| AWS Professional Services | AWS experts who work with you on a project |
| AWS Partner Network (APN) | Consulting and technology companies that build, sell or support solutions on AWS |
| AWS Managed Services | AWS operates infrastructure for you, once it is set up |
The APN includes consulting partners, who design and migrate workloads, and technology partners, who offer software and services on AWS. Partners can be found through the partner directory and AWS Marketplace.
The AWS Trust and Safety team handles reports of abuse of AWS resources. If you see spam, malware, a denial of service attack or illegal content coming from AWS hosted resources, report it through the AWS abuse report form or the abuse contact email address listed on the AWS site.
Joining the APN gives a partner benefits such as:
- training and certification for its staff
- partner events
- partner volume discounts
- help to sell with AWS (co-selling), including listing products in AWS Marketplace
AWS Marketplace
AWS Marketplace is a digital catalogue of software, data and services from other sellers. You can find and launch a product quickly, and the charge appears on your AWS bill.
Support Center
The AWS Support Center is the console area where you open and track support cases. Which case types you can open depends on your plan.
Choosing the right resource
| Need | Resource |
|---|---|
| Read how a service works | Documentation |
| Ask the community a question | re:Post |
| See what is wrong with my account setup | Trusted Advisor |
| Know whether an AWS outage affects me | Health Dashboard |
| Find a company to do the migration | Partner Network |
| Hands on help from AWS experts | Professional Services |
| Buy third party software billed via AWS | Marketplace |
What to remember for the exam
- Documentation, whitepapers and the Architecture Center are free technical references.
- re:Post and the Knowledge Center provide community and FAQ style answers.
- Trusted Advisor checks your account against best practices, and the full checks need a higher support plan.
- The AWS Health Dashboard shows service health and events that affect your account.
- The AWS Partner Network connects you to consulting and technology partners.
- Professional Services is AWS's own team for hands on project help.
- Marketplace sells third party software billed through AWS.
- Skill Builder and AWS Training and Certification provide learning and exams.
Match the clue to the group. "Check my setup" is Trusted Advisor, "is AWS having a problem" is Health Dashboard, and "find a company to help" is the Partner Network.
Common mistakes
Confusing Trusted Advisor with the Health Dashboard. Trusted Advisor reviews your configuration. The Health Dashboard reports events.
Thinking partners are AWS employees. Partner Network members are separate companies.
Opening a case for a how to question. Documentation and re:Post often answer faster and cost nothing.
Mixing up Professional Services and Managed Services. The first helps with projects, while the second runs infrastructure for you.
Professional Services and many partner offerings are not free. Documentation and community answers are free, but check whether a learning or other resource carries a charge.
Check yourself
Which service checks your account against best practices for cost, security and more?
AWS Trusted Advisor.
Where can you see whether an AWS event affects your own resources?
The AWS Health Dashboard.
Which program connects you to consulting and technology partner companies?
The AWS Partner Network.
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The full AWS CLF-C02 question bank has 832 questions, with timed practice exams and an explanation for every answer.
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