Author: AWS Editorial Team

APN Premier Partner nClouds helps customers build and manage modern infrastructure solutions that deliver innovation faster. They have been conducting AWS Well-Architected Reviews since getting certified as an AWS Well-Architected Partner in January 2018. In this post, we explore the basics of Well-Architected and the value of a Well-Architected Review, as well as how this framework can support your business. You will find AWS Well-Architected essential to achieving a customer-first culture.

We are excited to highlight 23 APN Partners that received new designations in December for our global AWS Competency, AWS Managed Service Provider (MSP), and AWS Service Delivery programs. These designations span workload, solution, and industry, and help customers identify specialized APN Partners that can deliver on core business objectives. Please join us in welcoming our newest APN Partner designees!

Deloitte’s Gary Arora, an APN Ambassador, will show you how to integrate an application with Amazon Athena to execute SQL queries with ‘athena-express.’ This is a wrapper around the AWS SDK that can simplify executing SQL queries in Amazon Athena and fetch the JSON results in the same synchronous call—a capability well suited for many web applications. Developers can use ‘athena-express’ to help save time and effort in setting up the integration and focus on core application development.

At AWS re:Invent 2018, we announced updates to APN Tier requirements, as well as access to updated benefits for APN Partners. We are moving the launch of new 2019 APN Program requirements to April 1, 2019. This additional time will allow us to provide you with the best possible partner experience leading to the best possible long-term results. Please engage your partner development contact with any additional questions you might have at this time.

High value care means achieving the best possible patient outcomes for the least amount of money. Health systems are looking for ways to deliver high value care as they get increasing pressure from payers to rein in runaway healthcare costs. As a leader in precision health, hc1.com ensures the right patient gets the right test and the right prescription. Through their advanced bioinformatics platform, hc1 personalizes healthcare, resulting in improved patient well-being and reduced medical spending.

Cyber-attacks are going to happen; vulnerabilities and exploits are going to be identified. Having a solid security-in-depth strategy, coupled with the right tools and people that understand how to respond, will put your company in stronger position to minimize exposure and risk. AWS has security-in-depth strategies for their global infrastructure that cover processes, people, and technology that protect the physical and foundational layers of their offering.

The new AWS Lambda runtime API and layers capabilities give us the ability to build a clean, supportable implementation of PHP on Lambda of our own. We’ll take a brief look at the overall workflow and runtime lifecycle, and then show you one way to build a PHP runtime to start powering your PHP applications on AWS Lambda. Not a PHP developer? You can adapt the examples in this guide to build a custom runtime in your language of choice.

It’s easy for vendors to get caught up in the needs of their customers that they forget to tend to their own needs. When CloudCheckr was a young startup, we admittedly had to make a deliberate effort to focus on leveraging all our platform has to offer. The results were as significant for CloudCheckr as they were for our clients. Identifying a Cloud Management Platform that’s available as a SaaS enables you to get started immediately with no overhead and nothing to install, including no agents.

Amazon EC2 Spot Instances are one of the best ways to dramatically cut EC2 costs on AWS. With the new pricing model, there has never been a better time to start leveraging Spot Instances, and Spotinst’s DevOps Automation Platform helps businesses reduce operational overhead with automation and cut costs by reliably leveraging Spot Instances. In this post, we share a few stories from Spotinst customers outlining how they maximized infrastructure efficiency at minimum cost.

The annual Global Partner Summit was held November 26-30 at AWS re:Invent 2018, and we are excited to introduce key initiatives and program launches. Announcements include APN Tier changes and updates to the overall APN benefits structure, as well as new programs like the AWS Well-Architected Partner Program, AWS IoT Service Delivery designations, the AWS Container Competency, and AWS Device Qualification Program.