🧑💻Exam Guide: Cloud Practitioner
Domain 4: Billing, Pricing, and Support
📘Task Statement 4.3
🎯 What Is This Task Testing?
You need to know where to get help on AWS and which support/assistance option fits a scenario:
- Official AWS Documentation, Whitepapers, and Blogs
- Key Technical Resources: AWS Prescriptive Guidance, AWS Knowledge Center, AWS re:Post
- AWS Support Plans and where support cases are managed (AWS Support Center)
- Tools that help monitor/manage environments: Trusted Advisor, AWS Health Dashboard, AWS Health API
- The AWS Trust and Safety team for reporting abuse
- The role and benefits of AWS Partners (APN), including AWS Marketplace, ISVs, and system integrators
- Other assistance: AWS Professional Services, AWS Solutions Architects
1) 📚 Official AWS Technical Resources
AWS Documentation
The primary source for service details, tutorials, and reference guides.
Use AWS Documentation When: you need the official “how it works” and “how to configure it” for a service.
AWS Whitepapers
Architectural guidance and best practices, often referenced in exam preparation guides.
Use AWS White Papers When: you need design guidance (security, reliability, well-architected approaches).
I know you didn't ask, but AWS Whitepapers are my favourite source of information, and I try to read at least one per day.
AWS Blogs
Updates, announcements, and deep dives into implementation patterns.
Use AWS Blogs When: you need practical examples, new feature information, or service walkthroughs.
2) 🧭 Targeted Help Resources
AWS Prescriptive Guidance
Curated guidance, patterns, and step-by-step recommendations for building and migrating on AWS.
Use AWS Prescriptive Guidance When: you want recommended approaches for migrations, modernization, and architecture patterns.
AWS Knowledge Center
AWS-authored troubleshooting and “how-to” articles, very practical.
Use AWS Knowledge Center When: you need to fix common configuration issues or follow step-by-step troubleshooting.
AWS re:Post
A community Q&A resource for AWS technical questions.
Use AWS re:Post When: you want community answers, discussion, and shared solutions.
3) 🧾 AWS Support Center
The AWS Support Center is where customers typically:
- open and manage support cases
- view case history and communication
- access support-related tools tied to their plan
“open a support case” → AWS Support Center.
4) 🛠️ AWS Support Plans
You should recognize these support options:
-
Customer service & communities
- Self-service resources + forums/community help
- Good for general questions and learning
-
AWS Developer Support
- For developers building/testing on AWS who need technical guidance
-
AWS Business Support
- For production workloads needing stronger support response and guidance
-
AWS Enterprise On-Ramp Support
- For customers moving into broader enterprise support needs (a step toward full enterprise)
-
AWS Enterprise Support
- For mission-critical, large-scale production environments needing the highest level of support
“small dev team needs guidance” _→ Developer Support
_“production system needs faster, more robust support” → Business Support
“mission critical / enterprise-wide operations” → Enterprise Support (or Enterprise On-Ramp if phrased as ramping up)
5) 🔍 Tools That Help Manage Environments
AWS Trusted Advisor
Provides best-practice recommendations across categories including cost optimization and security.
Use AWS Trusted Advisor When: you want checks that identify cost-saving opportunities or common misconfigurations.
AWS Health Dashboard
Shows service health and events that may affect AWS resources.
Use AWS Health Dashboard When: you need awareness of outages, degradation, or maintenance events.
AWS Health API
Programmatic access to AWS Health information.
Use AWS Health API When: you want to integrate health events into monitoring/automation or internal dashboards.
“recommendations for cost optimization” → Trusted Advisor
“check AWS service incidents affecting me” → Health Dashboard
“pull health events into my tooling” → Health API
6) ⚠️ Reporting Abuse: AWS Trust and Safety
The AWS Trust and Safety team handles reports of abuse of AWS resources.
Use AWS Trust and Safety When: you need to report things like:
- malicious activity hosted on AWS
- spam/phishing activity
- abusive or illegal content distribution using AWS infrastructure
“report abuse” → AWS Trust and Safety.
7) 🤝 AWS Partners and AWS Marketplace
AWS Partner Network (APN) roles
- Independent Software Vendors (ISVs): build and sell software solutions that run on or integrate with AWS.
- System Integrators (SIs): help customers design, migrate, and operate workloads on AWS (implementation and consulting).
“need a partner to migrate and implement” → System Integrator
“need a packaged third-party product” → ISV (often via Marketplace)
Benefits of being an AWS Partner
- partner training and certification opportunities
- partner events and enablement
- potential partner discounts/volume-related benefits (as described in AWS partner programs)
AWS Marketplace
AWS Marketplace is a digital catalog for third-party solutions, including categories such as:
- security, networking, databases
- cost management
- governance and entitlement (managing access/usage of purchased products)
“buy third-party solutions that integrate with AWS” → AWS Marketplace.
8) 🧑🔧 Other Technical Assistance Options
AWS Professional Services
AWS experts who can help plan and execute migrations, modernizations, and large projects.
Use AWS Professional Services When: you want hands-on help delivering a major AWS initiative.
AWS Solutions Architects
AWS technical experts who help customers design solutions (often via guidance and best practices, especially for architecture decisions).
Use AWS Solutions Architects When: you need architectural guidance on selecting services and designing on AWS.
✅ Quick Exam-Style Summary
- Official resources: Docs, Whitepapers, Blogs
- Practical help: Prescriptive Guidance, Knowledge Center, re:Post
- Support cases: AWS Support Center
- Support plans: Developer, Business, Enterprise On-Ramp, Enterprise
- Ops/cost tools: Trusted Advisor (recommendations), Health Dashboard (events), Health API (programmatic events)
- Abuse reporting: AWS Trust and Safety
- Partners: ISVs (software), SIs (implement/migrate); solutions via AWS Marketplace
- Hands-on help: AWS Professional Services, Solutions Architects
Additional Resources
- Resources
- Overview of Amazon Web Services
- AWS Partner Summit
- Amazon Web Services
- Click on the (?) symbol in your AWS Management Console Navigation Bar.
Top comments (0)