4.0 Billing, Pricing, and Support

4.1 Compare AWS pricing models.
4.2 Understand resources for billing, budget, and cost management.
4.3 Identify AWS technical resources and AWS Support options.

4.1 Compare AWS Pricing Models

AWS offers flexible pricing models to suit a wide variety of use cases. Understanding these models is critical for controlling cloud costs. There are three main pricing models:

1. Pay-as-You-Go (On-Demand Pricing)

• Description: Pay only for what you use, with no upfront costs or long-term commitments.
• Usage: Ideal for applications with unpredictable workloads or where it’s hard to estimate resource needs.
• Key Use Cases:
  • Development and test environments.
  • Short-term, spiky workloads.
• Example: Running an Amazon EC2 instance and being billed per hour or second for the exact time used.

2. Reserved Instances (RI)

• Description: Provides up to a 75% discount compared to On-Demand pricing in exchange for committing to use an instance for a 1-year or 3-year term.
• Types:
  • Standard Reserved Instances: Higher savings but less flexibility (can’t switch instance types easily).
  • Convertible Reserved Instances: Slightly lower savings but more flexible (can change instance types).
• Key Use Cases:
  • Steady-state workloads (e.g., web servers or databases running constantly).
  • Known long-term usage requirements.
• Example: Booking a 3-year commitment for an EC2 instance at a lower hourly rate.

3. Spot Instances

• Description: Purchase spare AWS capacity at significantly reduced prices (up to 90% off On-Demand rates).
• Usage: Ideal for workloads that are flexible in terms of when and where they run.
• Key Use Cases:
  • Batch processing jobs.
  • Applications with fault tolerance or flexible schedules (e.g., big data processing, web crawling).
• Example: Running a Hadoop cluster for a short period with large-scale, highly discounted Spot instances.

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4.2 Understand Resources for Billing, Budget, and Cost Management

AWS provides various tools to monitor, manage, and control costs, helping customers optimize their cloud spending.

1. AWS Free Tier

• Description: AWS offers a free tier with certain limits, including 12 months of free usage for many services. Services beyond these limits are charged at standard rates.
• Key Offerings:
  • 750 hours of EC2 micro instances.
  • 5 GB of Amazon S3 storage.
  • AWS Lambda with 1 million requests per month.

2. AWS Pricing Calculator

• Description: A tool that helps estimate the costs of AWS services before actually using them.
• Usage: You can model different AWS architecture scenarios to see how costs would scale with different services and levels of usage.

3. AWS Cost Explorer

• Description: A user-friendly interface to visualize and analyze your AWS cost and usage data over time.
• Features:
  • Explore cost data using graphs, filters, and groupings.
  • Set custom time ranges and filter by services, regions, or linked accounts.
  • Forecast costs and usage based on historical data.
• Usage: Track spending patterns and optimize resource utilization for cost-efficiency.

4. AWS Budgets

• Description: A tool that helps set custom cost and usage budgets and sends alerts when costs or usage exceed thresholds.
• Features:
  • Set monthly, quarterly, or yearly budgets.
  • Monitor actual costs and usage against your budget.
  • Receive alerts via email or SNS when budget thresholds are exceeded.
• Usage: Monitor overall AWS spending and set guardrails to ensure costs stay within predefined limits.

5. AWS Cost and Usage Report

• Description: Provides detailed data on your AWS usage and costs, down to the hourly level.
• Features:
  • Comprehensive reporting on all AWS resources.
  • Can integrate with Amazon Athena for querying large datasets or Amazon QuickSight for visualizations.
• Usage: Advanced billing analysis, such as attributing costs to business units or specific projects.

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4.3 Identify AWS Technical Resources and AWS Support Options

AWS offers a variety of technical support and resources tailored to different customer needs and usage levels.

1. AWS Support Plans

• AWS offers different tiers of support based on the level of service you require:

Basic Support:

• Description: Free support available to all AWS customers.
• Key Features:
  • 24/7 access to customer service.
  • AWS documentation, whitepapers, and support forums.
  • AWS Trusted Advisor with seven core checks.
• Who It’s For: New users, small-scale projects, or personal use cases.

Developer Support:

• Description: Targeted for developers or those experimenting with AWS services.
• Key Features:
  • Business hours access to technical support via email.
  • General guidance on architecture and AWS best practices.
  • Access to AWS Trusted Advisor’s full set of checks.
• Who It’s For: Individuals or small teams in a development or testing phase.

Business Support:

• Description: Aimed at businesses with production workloads on AWS.
• Key Features:
  • 24/7 technical support via phone, email, or chat.
  • Access to AWS Support API for programmatic case management.
  • AWS Trusted Advisor with the full set of checks.
  • Personal guidance from AWS technical account managers (TAMs).
• Who It’s For: Companies with production workloads that need faster response times and more proactive support.

Enterprise Support:

• Description: For organizations running mission-critical workloads on AWS that require the highest level of support.
• Key Features:
  • 24/7 support with a 15-minute response time for critical issues.
  • Dedicated technical account manager (TAM).
  • Proactive management services, including architecture reviews and operational guidance.
  • Support for enterprise-grade tools like AWS Infrastructure Event Management.
• Who It’s For: Large enterprises or organizations with critical workloads needing the highest level of support.

2. AWS Knowledge Center

• Description: A searchable database of common questions and technical FAQs.
• Usage: Find quick answers to common issues or questions about AWS services.

3. AWS Documentation

• Description: Detailed user guides, technical manuals, and tutorials for all AWS services.
• Usage: Provides comprehensive instructions on how to use AWS services and best practices for architecture and operations.

4. AWS Whitepapers and Reference Architectures

• Description: In-depth technical content providing best practices, architectural blueprints, and industry-specific guidance.
• Usage: Helps customers design scalable, secure, and cost-effective solutions using AWS.

5. AWS Support Forums

• Description: A community-driven platform where AWS users can ask questions and share knowledge.
• Usage: Leverage the collective experience of other AWS users and engineers to solve problems.

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Summary

For the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CCP) exam, understanding the pricing models, billing, budget management tools, and technical support resources is key. This section requires you to know how AWS charges for its services, how to manage costs, and the support available for different business needs. Being familiar with tools like AWS Pricing Calculator, Cost Explorer, and AWS Budgets helps in planning and controlling costs effectively. Additionally, knowledge of AWS support tiers will help you choose the right support plan for various business requirements.