The last of the four domains in the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Exam (AWS CLF-C02) is “Billing, Pricing, and Support.” This domain makes up 12% of the scored content.
If you want to follow along with my online course, “AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02) Cert Prep,” you can access the course here: LinkedIn Learning.
Don’t forget to download my unofficial study guide, as well as AWS’s official study guide!
Billing, Pricing, and Support
In this domain, you will learn about the way AWS prices their services, different ways your resources are billed, and how to access support when necessary.
4.1: Compare AWS pricing models
AWS Charges
Learn about the fundamental ways AWS charges for your resource usage:
- Compute (multiple pricing models available)
- Storage (pricing options for various options and tiers)
- Data transfer (in/out, within/across AWS Region)
AWS Pricing
- AWS Pricing Page: https://aws.amazon.com/pricing
- Whitepaper: “How AWS Pricing Works”
Compute Resource Pricing Models:
- Pay as you go (on-demand instances)
- Save when you commit (reserved instances)
- Save when you commit 2 (savings plans)
- Take advantage of un-utilized AWS capacity (spot instances)
- Save by using your own licenses and utilize dedicated hardware (dedicated hosts)
- Run Amazon EC2 instances on dedicated hardware (dedicated instances)
- Reserve compute capacity in advance (capacity reservations)
- Pay less by using more
4.2: Understand resources for billing, budget, and cost management
Billing, Budget, and Cost Management Resources
- AWS Budgets
- AWS Cost Explorer
- AWS Billing Conductor
- AWS Pricing Calculator
- AWS Cost and Usage Report (AWS CUR)
Billing Tools for Organizations
Tools to help larger organizations manage multiple AWS accounts and their billing:
- Consolidated Billing
- AWS Organizations
- AWS cost allocation tags
- Generate billing reports with AWS Cost and Usage Report by utilizing AWS cost allocation tags
- More information about AWS Cost management resources: here
4.3: Identify AWS technical resources and AWS Support options
There are many free and paid resources and support available for you and your organization when you are utilizing AWS.
AWS Support Plans
- Basic Support Plan (free): for testing out/experimenting with AWS
- Business Support+ (starts at $29/mo): minimum recommended for production workloads on AWS
- Enterprise Support (starts at $5k/mo): recommended for business-critical workloads looking for expert guidance
- Unified Operations (starts at $50k/mo): recommended for mission-critical workloads with enhanced resilience and application-specific expertise
The support plans and what the subscription comes with keeps on changing, so check out the official documentation for the most up-to-date info at “Compare AWS Support Plans.“
For pricing of the AWS Support Plans, there is a lot of granularity, so I recommend you check out the AWS Support Plan Pricing page.
Cost Optimization Tools
Tools to manage and monitor AWS environments for cost optimization:
- Trusted Advisor
- AWS Health Dashboard
- AWS Health API
Official AWS resources
- AWS Whitepapers
- AWS Blog
- AWS Documentation
- AWS re:Post
- AWS Knowledge Center
- AWS Prescriptive Guidances
- AWS Partner Networks
- AWS Marketplace
- AWS Support Plans
- AWS Trust and Safety Team
- AWS Support Center
- AWS Support Teams: AWS Professional Services, AWS Solutions Architects
Go back to the AWS CLF-C02 Exam Guide
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