Why AWS through Technology Services?
AWS accounts through the university offer an educational discount of 11% off the retail prices listed in the AWS pricing calculator. The university is not charged for network traffic out to the internet (egress waiver) as long as this cost does not exceed 15% of the overall bill.
Using AWS
Is AWS right for your project?
We’re always available to sit down and discuss whether AWS is a good fit for your unit’s needs, design solutions or take feedback on how we can improve.
How do I get AWS access?
When requesting AWS access through Tech Services, you will need a University CFOP and contact info for your billing/business office and IT support staff.
Support and documentation
AWS office hours: Monday and Tuesday (10 a.m. – 12 p.m.), Wednesdays (3 p.m. – 5 p.m.) and Fridays (1 p.m.-3 p.m.)
Office hours are available to anyone! Meet with a member of the Cloud team and an expert from AWS. Ask questions, work through issues, optimize your system, get design guidance or explore your ideas.
Schedule a 30-minute appointment here. You will automatically be sent a calendar invite as confirmation.
Get help from AWS experts
All university AWS accounts have enterprise support. Open a case through your AWS account to get direct help from AWS experts.
Illinois help articles
Tech Services has articles and instructions to help you or your IT staff connect AWS with Illinois-specific technologies.
AWS documentation
Amazon has a library of documentation and user guides for each of the services within AWS.
AWS resources for instructors
AWS Academy is an offering from AWS to provide materials to use in the classroom. To learn more about this services and how to sign up as an instructor, see AWS Educate and Academy
AWS self-paced training and certification
AWS offers three primary paths for certification: Solutions Architect, Developer, and Systems Operations. Each of these areas has two tiers of certification. Associates, which are intended for intermediate (1-2 years experience) skill levels and Professional, which are intended for advanced skill levels (2+ years experience). AWS Educate offers many self-paced tutorials. To learn more about this service, see AWS Educate and Academy.
Solutions architect
AWS Solutions Architect certification is intended for anyone with experience designing available, cost-efficient, fault-tolerant and scalable distributed systems on AWS.
Learn more about the AWS Solutions Architect exam and free resources available.
Developers
AWS Developer certification is intended for anyone with hands-on experience developing and maintaining an AWS-based application.
Learn more about the AWS Developer exam and free resources available.
Systems operations
AWS SysOps Administrator certification is intended for system administrators in cloud operations roles to validate technical skills.
Learn more about the AWS SysOps Administrator exam and free resources available.
AWS free tier and credits
AWS offers free usage and credits.
AWS free tier
AWS Free Tier is a way to create an account and use some of the AWS resources. Since this account is outside of the Enterprise support that the University receives, you won’t have access to AWS support.
Proof of concept projects
AWS Credits for proof-of-concept projects: You can contact Luke Chirhart, chirhart@amazon.com, our Account Manager at AWS for some AWS credits to experiment with AWS services toward a research project.
Credits for research
AWS Credits for Research provides larger amounts of credits for research projects after the proof-of-concept phase.
AWS Activate
AWS Activate provides credits for startups.
Specialty certifications
In addition to that there are five advanced specialty certifications for specific topics: