AWS Bets Big on India

In an interaction with DQ Channels, Terry Wise, Director, AWS Worldwide Partner Ecosystem elaborates on AWS Partner programs and their benefits in India

What are the different partner programs under the Amazon Web Services (AWS) ambit and how are the partners categorized?

AWS has a rich and vibrant partner ecosystem. The AWS Partner Network consists of thousands of consulting/systems integrator partners and technology/ISV partners across the world. The rapid pace of innovation of AWS is one of the reasons why our channel partners have been really motivated to take advantage of the immense opportunities created with the cloud technology delivery where they built practices and solutions on AWS cloud platform.

AWS also runs a global online Marketplace where organizations/businesses can purchase software and with a single click, organizations/businesses can deploy the application along with the ideal configuration of AWS Cloud infrastructure needed to support it.  AWS Marketplace has 23 product categories and more than 2,100 software listings for customers to choose from.

Under the AWS Global Partner Programs, we have the Global Channel Reseller Program, AWS Managed Service Program and the APN Competency Program. In addition, we have AWS Test Drive Program, AWS MarketPlace, AWS SaaS Partner Program and AWS Direct Connect Program

What do these partner programs entail and how do they benefit the partners?

Globally, more AWS Partners are moving “all-in” to AWS. Back in March, Infor announced that they are moving their underlying platform to AWS for their cloud delivery and the same wave has taken place with ISVs like Splunk, Acquia, Informatica and this is a trend that is accelerating at a very fast rate.

The AWS Global Channel Reseller Program enables qualified partners to resell AWS services to both commercial and public sector end customers. The program is designed for APN Consulting Partners who have built their AWS practice to include professional services and management of end customer AWS deployments.

The AWS Managed Service Program is designed for APN Consulting Partners who are skilled at cloud infrastructure and application migration, and deliver value to customers by offering proactive monitoring, automation, and management of their customer’s environment.

APN Competencies are granted to APN Partners who have demonstrated technical proficiency and proven customer success in specialized solution areas. Attaining an APN Competency allows APN members to differentiate themselves to customers by showcasing expertise in a particular solution area.  The current competencies include Digital Media Competency, Big Data Competency, Storage Competency, Healthcare Competency, Life Sciences Competency, Microsoft Solution Competency, SAP Solution Competency and Oracle Solution Competency.

The AWS Test Drive Program enables AWS Customers to quickly launch popular enterprise workloads by utilizing AWS’ scalable, agile, and flexible infrastructure. In minutes, customers can deploy and evaluate enterprise solutions using Test Drives designed by partners.

The AWS Marketplace enables qualified partners to market and sell their software to AWS Customers. AWS Marketplace is an online software store that helps customers find, buy, and immediately start using the software and services that run on AWS.

The AWS SaaS Partner Program provides APN Partners with support as they build, launch, and grow SaaS solutions on AWS. APN Technology Partners who develop SaaS solutions and utilize a SaaS-based software licensing and delivery model are encouraged to apply for the Program.

The AWS Direct Connect Program supports AWS Customers establish network connectivity between AWS Direct Connect locations and their datacenter, office, or colocation environment. Direct Connect Partners improve customer experience by providing flexibility and choices on how to connect with AWS. 

How is the AWS partner traction happening in India and what sort of benefits are they looking for here?

AWS has a fast growing Indian partner ecosystem and they are located across all major cities of India.  AWS channel/alliance team work hard to educate and enable the partner ecosystem, as well as conduct go-to-market activities with them.  The AWS Technology Partners in India include SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, Adobe, RAMCO, Newgen, Druva, Seclore, Indusface, Freshdesk among many others.  The AWS Consulting Partners include CapGemini, Accenture, Wipro, Progressive, Minjar, Team Computers, KPIT Cummins, SaaSforce, SD2labs, Blazeclan, Edifixio, 8K miles and Intelligrape among many others.  Our partner ecosystem is growing successfully using AWS to serve both local and overseas customers. For example, Minjar is our early AWS partner in India that has grown very quickly and is now providing services to many customers around the world. 

Our AWS channel partners in India are also telling us that over the last 2 to 3 years, they are seeing accelerated interests and change in the mindset among companies, and are proactively asking our channel partners about migrating on-premises workloads and core enterprise applications to AWS. This thus presents great business opportunities for our AWS Partner Network that has the expertise and experience in using the breadth and depth of AWS cloud services to help organizations move their existing workloads to the cloud as well as formulate migration plans.

In India, Pacnet, Tata Communications and Bharti Airtel have joined the AWS Partner Network to support AWS Direct Connect service.  AWS Direct Connect makes it easy to establish a dedicated network connection from on-premises datacenters to AWS.  By using AWS Direct Connect, AWS customers are able to reduce network costs, increase bandwidth throughput and provide a more consistent network experience.

What happens to the earlier AWS classification of standard, advanced and premier? Will there be a sort of a crosslink with the new classification, especially for managed service providers?

That’s right. So, if you are a systems integrator, you cannot be an advanced partner without having a competency. You can’t be a premier partner without having multiple competencies. Even though you are going to, you know, there are revenue targets, there are training and certifications targets, but you got to be good at something, which makes sense. Our best partners are a combination of small innovative fast movers and then larger organizations.

I will also touch on the managed service provider program. And cloud managed services being somewhat different from managed service providers that are traditionally done, we decided to morph that into a full blown program, where there is a specific training and enablement curriculum. This is less around technical and individual training, but more about certifying a company across process and capability. So now, in the traditional managed services world, about 70% to 80% of what you would normally do applies.

But there is a gap in the cloud. And it has to do with DevOps and continuous integration and automation. And how do you manage an elastic infrastructure versus a static one. So, we have all of these best practices that we have developed and we are giving all that intellectual property back to the ecosystem. And we are taking it a step further now; we are now certifying these partners across a set of controls. We have come up with what we think the best practices are, there are over 70 controls across a dozen categories. And to be a certified managed service provider, you have to pass a third party audit by a third party.