Customers of Amazon Web Services can signup to get questions answered or to receive TECHNICAL SUPPORT for operational issues during development, testing or integration of applications running on Amazon's infrastructure. The service covers an unlimited number of technical support cases and is available through a monthly subscription with no long-term contracts.
Amazon leases processing power and storage on its giant data center over the Web. The retailer's Elastic Computer Cloud is the development and deployment environment; storage is through its Simple Storage Service, or S3; and the Simple Queue Service, or SQS, covers storage, computing and query processing. The new technical support plans cover all of those services.
Amazon is offering two premium support plans, a Silver and Gold. The former offers response times ranging from four business hours for high severity issues to two business days for less serious problems. The cost is the greater of $100 a month or 10% of total monthly usage of the applicable Amazon services.
The Gold plan provides 24-hour phone technical support and response times of one hour for urgent issues. Pricing is the greater of $400 per month or 10% to 20% of total monthly usage of the applicable services.
In addition to the support plans, Amazon launched a Web-based dashboard that provides information on the operational status of each of its services. The dashboard uses green, yellow or red indicators to display the health of services with additional information "provided as relevant," Amazon said. Customers have access to this service at no charge either through the status page on the Web or via an RSS feed.
For developers who don't want to pay for support, Amazon offers online forums, FAQs and a resource center. Amazon has launched a site for customers who want to sign up for the premium service.
Source: informationweek.com/news/software/development/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=207400320
Friday, April 18, 2008
Friday, April 11, 2008
Chaos as bank computer crash wipes out ATMs
Tens of thousands of people were feeling short changed last night after a massive system failure wiped out all the Northern Bank's ATMs.
Throughout the province yesterday, frustrated people found themselves unable to withdraw money from hundreds of machines.
Customers trying to use Northern Bank debit and credit cards also faced misery as their transactions were refused, leaving many embarrassed and unable to make purchases.
The problem - which arose after the Danish- owned institution's central system crashed - affected all of the Northern Bank's 94 branches nationwide, including 25 in the greater Belfast area.
Speaking to the Belfast Telegraph last night, a spokesperson for the bank apologised to customers and blamed a glitch in the ATM network.
"This issue is the result of a technical problem with IBM who support this network," she said.
"We are working closely with IBM to restore service to our customers as soon as possible.
"We apologise unreservedly to any customers who are being affected by this situation."
Last night, the Belfast Telegraph tried to withdraw money from cash points at two of the major branches in the city centre, but found them still 'temporarily out of service'.
The spokesperson, however, stressed that engineers were making every effort to repair the fault and said the network would be up and running again as soon as possible.
"Any customer who urgently needs to withdraw cash can still do so at any Northern Bank branch or can use their chequebook," she added.
Messages outside the Northern Bank's headquartwers in Belfast yesterday alerted customers to the problem.
But it is understood that the system crash went wider than Northern Ireland, also affecting machines in Europe owned by the Northern's parent Danske Bank.
This is the second time in recent months that the Northern Bank has been at the centre of a problem with cash machines.
In February, it emerged that Nationwide customers using Northern cash machines were not having pay-outs debited from their accounts.In that case, however, the error was not linked to Northern Bank technology, but to Nationwide's.
source:belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/article3598167.ece
Throughout the province yesterday, frustrated people found themselves unable to withdraw money from hundreds of machines.
Customers trying to use Northern Bank debit and credit cards also faced misery as their transactions were refused, leaving many embarrassed and unable to make purchases.
The problem - which arose after the Danish- owned institution's central system crashed - affected all of the Northern Bank's 94 branches nationwide, including 25 in the greater Belfast area.
Speaking to the Belfast Telegraph last night, a spokesperson for the bank apologised to customers and blamed a glitch in the ATM network.
"This issue is the result of a technical problem with IBM who support this network," she said.
"We are working closely with IBM to restore service to our customers as soon as possible.
"We apologise unreservedly to any customers who are being affected by this situation."
Last night, the Belfast Telegraph tried to withdraw money from cash points at two of the major branches in the city centre, but found them still 'temporarily out of service'.
The spokesperson, however, stressed that engineers were making every effort to repair the fault and said the network would be up and running again as soon as possible.
"Any customer who urgently needs to withdraw cash can still do so at any Northern Bank branch or can use their chequebook," she added.
Messages outside the Northern Bank's headquartwers in Belfast yesterday alerted customers to the problem.
But it is understood that the system crash went wider than Northern Ireland, also affecting machines in Europe owned by the Northern's parent Danske Bank.
This is the second time in recent months that the Northern Bank has been at the centre of a problem with cash machines.
In February, it emerged that Nationwide customers using Northern cash machines were not having pay-outs debited from their accounts.In that case, however, the error was not linked to Northern Bank technology, but to Nationwide's.
source:belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/article3598167.ece
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