AWS Partner Network (APN) Blog

How Can You Find Top APN Partners on AWS?

Explore the AWS Competency Program: Helping Customers Identify Top AWS Partner Network (APN) Partners on AWS across Industries, Verticals, and Solutions

 

Customers use AWS to meet a wide variety of their IT needs, and many customers leverage the AWS Partner Network (APN) to provide additional value. Are you looking to engage with an AWS Consulting Partner who can help you effectively migrate your applications to AWS? Are you a media firm hoping to identify an AWS Technology Partner solution that can help you render video footage in the cloud? Chances are, whatever you’re looking to do on AWS, there’s an APN Partner whose services or solutions can help you leverage all of the benefits that the AWS Cloud provides.

But how do you identify the right APN Partner with whom to engage? And what does it mean to identify the right APN Partner?

Here’s where the AWS Competency Program comes in.

The AWS Competency Program is the global APN Partner program focused on providing our customers and sellers with guidance on the most qualified APN Technology and Consulting Partners who have deep expertise and proven customer success in specific solutions areas, such as Big Data, DevOps, Migration, and IoT; in vertical markets such as Financial Services, Healthcare and Life Sciences, Government, Digital Media; and with enterprise business applications, including Microsoft Workloads and SAP. AWS Competencies help customers find APN Partners who can bring the right expertise for their specific business needs by quickly narrowing the search among the tens of thousands of partners in the APN network.

“Our AWS Healthcare Competency partners repeatedly demonstrate expertise in serving the needs of the payer and provider communities to advance human health,” says Dr. Oxana Pickeral, the Global Segment Leader for Healthcare & Life Sciences at AWS. “Healthcare customers routinely leverage their rapid pace of innovation to tackle the entire healthcare spectrum, from security and compliance to population health analytics.”

The AWS Competency Program is the vehicle by which the APN Partners with the right solution or industry expertise are identified and validated. This validation, however, does not come easily.

AWS Competency Partners go through a rigorous technical assessment and verification of their expertise specific to each AWS Competency. AWS solutions architects perform a thorough technical validation that challenges APN Partners to raise the bar on their AWS Competency-specific solutions and the use of AWS best practices for security and architecture in the AWS Cloud. Additionally, AWS Competency Partners’ case studies go through a review by an independent third-party audit firm before they are accepted into the AWS Competency Program.

Each AWS Competency is different and has a distinct set of requirements that can be easily viewed by AWS Customers. This facilitates transparency and helps customers understand the meticulous process that AWS Competency Partners go through. The requirements are designed to evolve and become more stringent over time as industry verticals and solution areas mature in the AWS Cloud, meeting a core goal of continually raising the bar for AWS Competency achievements. Additionally, AWS Competency Partners are re-evaluated every 12-24 months to ensure the program only validates APN Partners who are truly committed to enhancing and refining their expertise and leadership in their space. The AWS Competency Program’s overarching goal is to give AWS Customers the confidence that they are choosing APN Partners that are highly specialized in a specific AWS solution or industry vertical.

Raising the Bar for Customers and APN Partners

 

The AWS Competency status is attained by mature APN Partners who work closely with AWS business and technical teams and share a common vision and dedication to delivering top notch customer experience and meaningful success.

Here’s what some of our AWS Competency Partners are saying about the AWS Competency Program:

  • Scott Udell, Vice President of IoT Solutions at Cloud Technology Partners (CTP), notes that CTP’s Security, IoT, Migration, DevOps, and Financial Services Competency achievements are a “stamp of approval”. “This is a strong recognition of our work around IoT, and it will help us gain traction in the marketplace.”
  • ClearData CEO Darin Brannan says his firm’s AWS Healthcare Competency Partner is “an achievement that affirms our position in healthcare security, compliance, and managed services, while our work on AWS enables healthcare organizations to quickly deploy services and apps in a healthcare-fortified AWS environment.”
  • Aaron Klein, Founder and Chief Operating Officer of CloudCheckr, says, “While AWS holds its APN Partners to high standards, AWS also consistently supports and works with those who meet the standards. AWS’ help through the APN and Competency Program has proven invaluable in helping CloudCheckr thrive and grow as a solution and as a company. We would not be where we are today without the benefits of being an APN Partner.”
  • “The APN takes its Competency designations seriously. This gives credence to the companies that achieve these Competencies and provides a benchmark that differentiates other APN Partners in this space,” explains Robert Groat, EVP, Technology and Strategy, Smartronix. “We want our government clients to know that we are committed to delivering AWS solutions that meet their unique and demanding requirements. As an AWS Premier Partner in the AWS Government Competency Program we have benefited from being able to deliver highly secure, highly available, fault tolerant and innovative solutions that have transformed the way our government customers deliver services to its constituents.”

The AWS Competency Program currently has 17 programs under the AWS Competency umbrella, and will continue to expand as solution areas mature in the AWS Cloud. The AWS Competency Program was founded on the philosophy of quality over quantity, which is why each AWS Competency is designed with a high requirements bar.

Once the APN Partners have achieved an AWS Competency status, they qualify for a number of benefits in the APN Program designed to enable them to accomplish even greater successes. For example, AWS Competency Partners are invited to upcoming product release information sessions, gain access to AWS private betas, they are the first APN Partners to be given an opportunity to host subject-matter webinars, and gain access to AWS roadmap briefings.

AWS Competency Partners are closely engaged with APN teams and have the opportunity to leverage AWS Competency Partner exclusive events to provide feedback to the APN leadership. AWS Competency Partners receive a special designation in the APN Partner Solutions Finder directory and a listing on the AWS segment or solutions web pages, to mention a few of the program benefits.

The AWS Competency Program offers an enormous value to AWS Competency Partners who choose to continuously raise the bar together with AWS and share our customer obsession, but for AWS Customers, this value is potentially greater! It gives our customers a high degree of confidence in choosing a company that is aligned with AWS rapid innovation and dedication to deliver the best possible results.

Explore AWS Competency Partners by Solution, Industry Vertical, or Business Applications