AWS
Channel Needs to Navigate the AWS Cloud With Care
As the size and scope of Amazon Web Services (AWS) increases, solution providers across the channel will need to carefully navigate threats and opportunities.
Size of AWS
AWS generates $13 billion in annual revenue with a growth rate of 55%. The AWS global infrastructure is comprised of 42 Availability Zones across 16 geographic regions worldwide, with another 2 AWS regions (and 5 Availability Zones) in France and China expected to come online in the coming months. In 2017, AWS will add four more availability zones to create a total of 18 around the world. Each zone consists of multiple distributed data centers.
Size of the Marketplace
AWS Marketplace features more than 3,500 software listings from over 1,100 independent software vendors. Customers are using more than 300 million hours a month of Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) to run AWS Marketplace products. More than 300 new ISVs joined AWS Marketplace in the past year.
Service Delivery Program
AWS aims to promote APN Consulting and Technology Partners, now that both have passed technical reviews and have a validated track record of customer success with specific AWS services. The AWS Services Delivery Program has more than 150 APN partner solutions and practices validated across 15 categories.
Hybrid Clouds With VMware
In 2017, AWS is committing to launching a VMware Cloud on an AWS Partner Program that will reward partners for deploying and operating the VMware Cloud on AWS. VMware, of course, has its own channel program.
Hybrid Clouds with Greengrass
AWS is extending its reach into on-premise IT environments via a Greengrass platform that’s capable of running compute functions locally via an AWS Lambda serverless compute platform. Initially, Greengrass will focus on internet of things (IoT) applications.
Focus on Government Accounts
AWS has created the Public Sector Partner Program to address the government market. At launch, there were 350 partners in the program.
New AWS Competencies
The AWS Competency Program covers 16 different workloads and verticals. The two newest competencies are AWS Financial Services and the AWS IoT Competency.
Global Channel Momentum
More than 10,000 new partners have joined the APN in the past 12 months, with 60% of APN partners headquartered outside the U.S. AWS has also launched an AWS Partner Solutions Finder to help partners market their services more successfully.
Competition With Oracle
AWS has launched a Postgres database service capable of running applications designed to run on Oracle’s database. It also provides an Oracle database service. But it’s clear AWS wants to move workloads away from Oracle databases that are significantly more expensive to deploy than open-source database platforms. AWS is also making it possible to launch SQL queries directly against data stored in its S3 cloud storage service.
New Compute Services
Beyond AWS offering the latest generation of Intel processors, customers have the option to extend x86-based applications using graphical processing units (GPUs). The company is also providing a new field-programmable gate array (FPGA) service.
AWS Managed Services
AWS is extending the number of managed services it offers around IT operations. The latest offering includes an implementation of the open-source Chef IT automation engine; AWS Batch, a managed batch processing service; AWS X-Ray, an application visualization service; and AWS Code Build, an application testing service. Most of the machine learning algorithms are also exposed as a managed service delivered by AWS.