EC2 Service Description

Key Differentiators

Feature	Bronze 🥉	Silver 🥈	Gold 🥇
Monitoring Depth	Infrastructure	Infrastructure + OS	Infrastructure + OS
Patching Frequency	N/A	On-demand	Continuous
Compliance Automation	0%	50%	90%+
Self-Service Capabilities	None	Limited	Extensive
Workload Maturity Required	Low	Medium	High

Service Tier Comparison

	Bronze 🥉	Silver 🥈	Gold 🥇
Best For	Legacy VMs Undocumented environments	VMs requiring routine maintenance Environments not ready for full automation	Modern cloud-native workloads Self-service platform requirements
Monitoring	24/7 infrastructure monitoring CloudWatch metrics (CPU, Disk, I/O, Network) Grafana-based alerting Infrastructure visibility only	All Bronze features Grafana Alloy agent for OS metrics Memory/disk/process monitoring System logs (syslog, journald)	All Silver features Full Grafana LGTM stack SLO-based alerting
Incident Response	Real-time incident notification Instance down/unhealthy alerts Cloud expertise during incidents Escalation via agreed channels e.g. Slack/Teams/Phone	All Bronze features Proactive issue detection Log-based incident analysis Process crash detection	All Silver features Predictive failure detection Automated remediation Self-healing capabilities
Maintenance & Patching	Customer managed No automation	Monthly OS patching via Ansible Package updates Regular health checks Scheduled restarts	Fully automated patching Golden AMI pipeline Canary deployments Automated rollback Zero-downtime updates
Infrastructure Management	Manual/customer managed IAM access for monitoring only	Partial automation Resource tagging Documentation in GitBook Defined responsibilities	Full Infrastructure as Code Terraform automation Launch Templates/ASGs Self-service provisioning
Compliance & Security	Basic monitoring Customer responsibility	Guided compliance Security recommendations Patch compliance tracking	CIS benchmark compliance Automated security hardening Compliance reporting Custom overlay support
Cost Optimization	Not included	Basic recommendations Resource utilization reports	Continuous optimization Quarterly reviews Automated rightsizing Reserved instance planning
Documentation	Basic setup docs Incident runbooks	Detailed runbooks Architecture documentation Responsibility matrix	Full platform documentation Self-service guides API documentation Automation playbooks
Customer Responsibilities	OS management Patching Backups Application management Incident response Log management	Patching approval Config requirements Critical metrics definition App-specific support	Strategic direction Quarterly review participation Major change approval Business context
Playground Responsibilities	Monitoring setup Alert configuration Incident notification Access provisioning	All Bronze features Monthly patching Agent management Log collection Health checks	All Silver features Full lifecycle automation Platform operations Continuous improvement Cost optimization
Support Model	Reactive	Proactive + Reactive	Predictive + Automated
Automation Level	None	Partial (30-40%)	Complete (90%+)
Customer Effort Required	High	Medium	Low

Upgrade Paths

From → To	Timeline*	Key Requirements
Bronze → Silver	2-3 weeks	• Agent deployment approval • Patching window agreement • Documentation review
Silver → Gold	4-6 weeks	• Architecture modernization • Automation readiness • Team training
Bronze → Gold	6-8 weeks	• Full assessment required • Phased migration approach • Platform transformation

*Based on a customer running 15 - 25 Virtual Machines

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For detailed pricing and custom requirements, please contact your Playground representative.