AWS Partner Network (APN) Blog

New Validation Checklists Clarify AWS Competency Requirements for APN Consulting Partners

By Tyler VanGrunsven, Partner Product Manager at AWS
By Chris Alvarez, Sr. Partner Product Manager at AWS

To receive the AWS Competency designation, which showcases top AWS Partner Network (APN) Partners to customers, organizations must undergo rigorous technical validation. They’re also assessed on the security, performance, and reliability of their Amazon Web Services (AWS) solutions.

To help APN Consulting Partners understand this process and our validation requirements, we are releasing new versions of the AWS Competency Validation Checklists (VCL).

The validation checklists highlighted in this post are specific for APN Consulting Partners. If you’re an APN Technology Partner, please see this blog post for your VCLs.

What’s in the Checklists for APN Consulting Partners?

These checklists outline for APN Consulting Partners the customer case study and technical criteria needed to achieve the AWS Competency designation.

The AWS Competency Program is built to go beyond the meaning of the word “competent.” It’s one of the toughest designations an APN Partner can achieve and maintain, giving customers complete confidence in choosing top APN Partners to team up with.

What’s Changing?

  • Live webpage format: The AWS Competency VCL has been migrated to a live webpage format. The traditional PDF format has been removed from APN Partner Central and is no longer available. This provides a better user experience, consistency across all VCLs, and better version control.
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  • Downloadable self-assessments: The self-assessment is a document APN Partners complete and submit to AWS along with their application to confirm they are compliant with the requirements of the VCL. The web-based checklist provides APN Partners the ability to download the requirements in an Excel format. This allows APN Partners to track their progress to completion and easily submit the file when applying.
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  • Standardized common technical requirements: Previously, our common requirements were seen as subjective between Competencies and resulted in an inconsistent experience for APN Partners when preparing for the application. In this new format, our common technical requirements have been standardized across all Competencies to provide more clarity and prescriptive guidance within the checklist.

VCL Effective Dates

The AWS Competency program will honor APN Partners who use the previous checklist version for 60 days after the newest version has been published, if applicable.

All applications submitted after 60 days of the VCL publication date will be validated against the most recent checklist version found on the AWS Competency program page. For more information, please see the AWS Competency checklists below.

NEW! See All Checklists for APN Consulting Partners

Released August 10, 2020 (Partner Central login required)

Team Up with an AWS Competency Partner

If you want to be successful in today’s complex IT environment, and remain that way tomorrow and into the future, teaming up with an AWS Competency Partner is The Next Smart.

The AWS Competency Program verifies, validates, and vets top APN Partners that have demonstrated customer success and deep specialization in specific solution areas or segments.

Learn more about the AWS Competency program >>