AWS, Azure and GCP support plans against operational needs

Choose an entitlement by testing its case route, severity handling, response expectations, escalation and account coverage against the incidents your team must support.

An initial response target measures when support begins work, not a promise to resolve an incident within that time.

Start with the operating need

List workloads, operators and credible incidents. Record when each could occur in Australia, which business action stops, who can open a case and who can work with the provider.

Separate billing questions, routine technical questions and production outages. If a partner manages the account, confirm whether your organisation contacts the provider directly or follows the partner's support route.

Compare severity, initial response, hours, contact route, escalation and account coverage against each workload. Check the entitlement attached to the actual account and purchase channel.

AWS: check the plan and account route

Basic Support includes account and billing help, service quota increases, support forums, service health checks, documentation, technical papers and best-practice guides. Its listed features are available 24/7, but technical support cases require an eligible paid plan.

Business Support+ provides 24/7 phone, web and chat access to Cloud Support Engineers, plus real-time contextual responses through generative AI. Enterprise adds a designated technical account manager and AWS Security Incident Response at no additional cost.

Available case-severity values depend on the account's plan. AWS names the levels General guidance, System impaired, Production system impaired, Production system down and Business-critical system down.

Business Support+ response targets are under 24 hours for General guidance, under 12 hours for System impaired, under four hours for Production system impaired, under one hour for Production system down and under 30 minutes for Business-critical system down. Enterprise lists the same targets, with a 15-minute target for Business-critical system down.

AWS Developer Support and the older Business Support plan will be discontinued on 1 January 2027. Existing customers can continue using their plans or upgrade to Business Support+ before that date.

Enterprise On-Ramp will also be discontinued on 1 January 2027. During 2026, customers will be upgraded to Enterprise at contract renewal or in periodic batches, with email notification a month before the upgrade.

Azure: match severity to the plan

Basic is included for all Azure customers and does not include technical support. Developer suits trial and non-production environments; Standard is for production workloads; Professional Direct is for small to medium-size companies with business-critical Azure use; and Unified Enterprise is for enterprise-grade support across mission-critical Azure and other Microsoft technologies.

Developer offers business-hours access to Support Engineers through prioritised responses on Microsoft Q&A. Standard, Professional Direct and Unified provide 24/7 access to technical support by email, phone and chat after a support request; Unified adds escalation management.

Severity A means critical business impact with significant loss or degradation and requires immediate attention. Customers commit to continuous 24/7 work with Microsoft.

Severity B means moderate impact where work can continue in an impaired way. Customers may choose 24/7 or business-hours handling and must remain available for that route. Severity C means minimal business impact.

Initial response is when a Microsoft Support Engineer contacts the customer and starts working on the request. Developer's Severity A and B targets are not available; Severity C is within eight business hours.

Standard targets are under one hour for Severity A, under four hours for Severity B and within eight business hours for Severity C. Professional Direct targets are under one hour for A, under two hours for B and within four business hours for C.

Unified Enterprise lists response targets of under one hour for Severity A and under two hours for Severity B, with Severity C within four business hours. The Azure plan comparison also lists a Severity 1 critical-business-system-down response of 15 minutes for Azure and one hour for other products.

Advisory, escalation and account management services are available with Professional Direct and Microsoft Unified. Azure services released to General Availability and purchased from Microsoft are covered by all plans.

Public previews are also covered, although preview features typically have no SLA. Services purchased through another channel follow that purchase's agreement terms.

Google Cloud: check production coverage

Basic Support is included for every Google Cloud customer, including free trials, and provides documentation, community forums, billing assistance and Active Assist.

Standard is recommended for workloads under development and includes unlimited access to technical support. Enhanced is designed for production workloads, with fast response times and additional services; Premium is for enterprises with critical workloads and offers the fastest response time.

Google Cloud plan details do not state severity levels or response targets for Standard and Enhanced. Premium specifies 24/7, 15-minute initial response for business-critical issues, but does not map that target to a named severity level.

The plan details do not specify a case-opening route, support hours or who can open a case. Match the workload to the team's actual on-call coverage, particularly for incidents that could occur overnight.

Google's plan details do not identify an escalation-management service. Premium names Customer Aware Support, Technical and Accounts Manager Services, and proactive guidance from a named Technical Account Manager; Customer Aware Support includes awareness of architecture and projects.

Decide against the runbook

For each workload, record the highest credible severity, the hours an incident may occur, the case opener, the route needed and the account coverage required. Mark the entitlement fits, fits with an operating change or does not fit.

Google Cloud plan details do not state severity levels, channels or support hours, so record those items as unconfirmed rather than assuming they match AWS or Azure.

Support does not replace monitoring, recovery procedures or available staff. Check the proposed case-opening route before relying on it in an emergency.