AWS Marketplace

Using AWS Marketplace to streamline third-party software procurement in higher education

Higher education institutions face unique challenges when managing third-party software procurement, including decentralized purchasing, compliance requirements, and budget constraints. Additionally, ensuring security and governance while enabling faculty, researchers, and students to access the tools they need is challenging.

AWS Private Marketplace allows institutions to create a customized catalog of pre-approved software, streamlining procurement, strengthening security, and fostering innovation. In this post, we’ll explore the specific challenges universities encounter, how Private Marketplace helps overcome them, and provide practical guidance for implementation.

Understanding Third-Party Software Challenges in Higher Education

Higher education institutions depend on third-party software for critical operations like student information systems, learning management, research, and administration. Today’s universities and colleges maintain hundreds of software solutions to meet the needs of students, faculty, administrators, and researchers. As campuses accelerate their digital transformation, managing these complex technology ecosystems has become increasingly difficult and create several key challenges including:

  1. Complex procurement and licensing processes
  2. Security vulnerabilities and compliance concerns
  3. Difficulties in vendor management and collaboration
  4. Limited budget visibility and cost optimization
  5. Challenges discovering innovative software solutions
  6. Payment and invoicing complexities

The procurement and licensing challenges are especially difficult in higher education, where departments often need different versions of the same software. In addition, procurement must align with academic calendars and budget cycles. Security and compliance have become critical priorities as institutions handle sensitive student data while meeting Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) requirements.

Traditional software procurement processes take 6-12 months from initial request to implementation, which is problematic when educational technology needs can change within weeks or months Due to institutional protocols including multi-tiered approvals, fiscal cycles, and regulatory compliance, educational institutions receive technological solutions that are outdated or misaligned with contemporary educational requirements. This also limits an institutions’ ability to discover and implement innovative solutions that enhance their academic and operational capabilities. As these challenges grow, institutions need unified solutions that can streamline software management while maintaining security, controlling costs, and enabling innovation. Addressing these challenges effectively has become essential for institutions to remain competitive and deliver value to students and faculty.

Benefits of Private Marketplace for higher education institutions

Private Marketplace helps higher education institutions create a curated digital catalog that streamlines software purchasing while meeting governance and compliance requirements. Here are the main benefits:

  • Creating a customized digital catalog – Institutions can build a tailored catalog of preapproved software products. Administrators can select specific products from AWS Marketplace and control which products different departments or user groups can see. This makes sure that faculty and staff can only purchase approved software.
  • Improving procurement workflows – Reduces procurement complexity by offering self-service access to preapproved software. Users can browse the curated catalog and request purchases through standardized workflows.
  • Managing vendors more effectively – Provides a single platform for managing software subscriptions and licenses. Institutions can standardize terms and conditions, automate license renewals, and maintain consistent communication with vendors.

Maintaining compliance through customization

By combining Private Marketplace features with AWS Marketplace Private Offers, institutions can create procurement processes that meet their specific requirements while maintaining compliance standards and operational efficiency. A university can set up approval workflows for different software categories such as:

  • Research software
  • Educational tools
  • Administrative applications
  • Security solutions

This provides appropriate oversight for each category.

Creating department-specific catalogs in Private Marketplace

Higher education institutions can create specialized catalogs for different departments. For example:

  • Engineering departments with technical tools
  • Medical schools with healthcare software
  • Business schools with analytics platforms

Third-party Software restrictions

AWS Marketplace Private Offers and AWS Private Marketplace provide organizations with controlled procurement options. While the initial setup and price negotiation process require more time compared to standard public offerings, this approach offers long-term benefits. Once established, it ensures all purchases align with pre-approved institutional policies and regulatory requirements. Organizations can create a curated catalog of pre-vetted software products with pre-negotiated terms, which streamlines future purchases and reduces the risk of non-compliant acquisitions. This structured approach simplifies ongoing procurement processes by eliminating the need for case-by-case approvals and negotiations.

Managing roles and permissions

Preventing unauthorized purchases is crucial for software procurement. Private Marketplace works with AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) to let institutions set specific roles and permissions that match their structure. Common IAM roles for Private Marketplace include:

  • Private Marketplace Administrator: Responsible for managing and governing a private marketplace within an organization. With the AWSPrivateMarketplaceAdminFullAccess IAM role, they have full administrative control over the Private Marketplace, allowing them to:
    • Create curated catalogs of approved products known as Experiences
    • Delegate administration to member accounts that have been granted administrative permissions for a private marketplace
    • Approve or deny software requests
    • Configure notifications: allowing administrators and users to receive Amazon EventBridge events when a user requests a product, and when a request is approved or declined
  • Delegated IT admin – Full system configuration and oversight of Private Marketplace
  • Dean’s office – Experience-specific configuration rights
  • Research teams and staff – Software request and launch capabilities
  • Students – Subscription-only access to approved resources

These roles are customizable with granular permissions to align with an organization’s specific procurement processes and compliance requirements.

AWS services integration and recommendations for higher education

In today’s evolving cloud landscape, institutions must navigate governance, procurement, and billing complexities to optimize their cloud environments. This roadmap provides a structured approach to deploying an AWS Private Marketplace tailored for educational institutions.


Figure 1: Implementation overview

  1. Set up foundation
    1. Deploy Landing Zone Accelerator (LZA) on AWS for education
    2. Configure AWS Organizations
    3. Create account structure
  2. Configure Marketplace
    1. Create department-specific experiences
    2. Set up notifications for products requests
    3. Establish vendor relationships d. Add private offers
    4. Procure public products and services
  3. Enablement sessions
    1. Create training programs
    2. Schedule compliance reviews
    3. Track spending

Landing Zone Accelerator (LZA) for Education

LZA for Education, integrated with AWS Organizations, provides educational institutions with a comprehensive solution for establishing secure, compliant, and scalable cloud environments. This industry-specific deployment accelerates the process of setting up a multi-account AWS environment while providing centralized management and governance through AWS Organizations. The following architecture diagram shows an overview of the LZA for Education deployment.


Figure 2: LZA for Education deployment (*For illustrative purposes only)

The integration of LZA with AWS Organizations creates a robust foundation for cloud operations in educational institutions. This setup implements institution-wide policies and compliance controls through AWS Organizations. Additionally, it maintains education-specific compliance configurations through LZA for key standards. The following screenshot shows an example of account hierarchy in AWS Organizations.


Figure 3: AWS Organizations account hierarchy (*For illustrative purposes only)

This combination enables centralized management of multiple accounts and standardized security controls. Institutions can confidently scale their cloud infrastructure while providing consistent governance and compliance across all departments and programs.

Enabling Private Marketplace

AWS Marketplace provides Private Marketplace support for AWS organizational units (OUs), allowing customers to create, manage, and govern Private Marketplace catalogs for organizational units within their AWS Organizations. Universities curate catalogs of approved third-party software available in AWS Marketplace for different academic departments and research units.

Figure 4: AWS Private Marketplace and AWS Organizations Integration

This enhancement enables universities to streamline software procurement and governance across departments through AWS Private Marketplace. Universities create customized software catalogs for different academic departments while maintaining centralized oversight. By establishing pre-approved software listings and automated approval workflows, departments quickly access the tools they need for academic and research purposes without lengthy procurement processes. The following screenshot illustrates how universities can view and manage their organization’s Private Marketplace structure.


Figure 5: AWS Organizations view from Private Marketplace (*For illustrative purposes only)

For example, engineering departments needs access to specialized software, while business schools needs access to financial modeling tools. Universities also assign department administrators to manage their specific Private Marketplace experiences, reducing work for central IT administrators through delegation.

The following image illustrates the Associated audience tab within the AWS Private Marketplace interface, displaying the OUs or accounts directly associated with this catalog. In this case, the Faculty of Information Technology. Administrators will add or disassociate audiences to refine access governance.


Figure 6: Private Marketplace experience for a specific faculty (*For illustrative purpose only)

The following image illustrates the Products tab within the AWS Private Marketplace for the Faculty of Information Technology Catalog, where administrators manage the lifecycle of software products available in the catalog. The Pending requests section lists software requests from users so administrators review and approve or decline them. The Approved products section highlights software already approved for the catalog, such as Amazon ECS-Optimized Amazon Linux 2 (AL2) arm64 AMI, provided by AWS. Organizations curate and govern their software procurement processes, making sure that only vetted, compliant solutions are accessible to specific business units, thereby aligning software usage with organizational policies and objectives.


Figure 7: Private Marketplace approved products tab (* For illustrative purposes only)

Negotiating AWS Private Offers

Private offers enable higher education institutions to receive customized pricing and terms for software purchases through AWS Marketplace, streamlining the procurement process while complying with institutional requirements. The process follows these steps:


Figure 8: Private Marketplace Procurement steps

  1. Initial procurement – Institution’s procurement team identifies software needs and initiates negotiations with AWS Marketplace sellers for educational pricing and terms.
  2. Private offer creation – Seller creates a customized private offer based on negotiated terms, incorporating specific pricing, payment schedules, and contract duration for the institution.
  3. Account configuration – Private offer must be extended to both the institution’s AWS account and the account containing the private marketplace administrator to make sure of proper access and management.
  4. Implementation – The private marketplace administrator must first add the product to your private marketplace before the private offer can be accepted.

To ensure a smooth implementation, work closely with your university’s marketplace administrator throughout the process. They will help enforce established purchasing policies and compliance requirements while verifying that vendor offer terms meet your institution’s standards.

Conclusion and recommendations

AWS Private Marketplace helps higher education institutions improve their third-party software management. When used with AWS best practices for multi-account environments, institutions can improve procurement processes, strengthen security, enhance vendor management, and support innovation. To effectively adopt AWS Private Marketplace, tailored training sessions should be provided for procurement teams, IT administrators, and end users. Interactive workshops, clear documentation, and ongoing support will help all stakeholders maximize Private Marketplace benefits and streamline software procurement.

Further reading

  1. AWS Public Sector Blog: Higher Education – Features articles about AWS solutions for higher education, including cloud adoption strategies, case studies, and innovations supporting education institutions.
  2. Landing Zone Accelerator for Education – Introduces the Landing Zone Accelerator for Education, which streamlines deploying secure, scalable cloud environments tailored for educational institutions.
  3. Managing Private Marketplace across organizations – Describes strategies to manage private marketplaces across multiple AWS organizations efficiently, providing consistent governance.
  4. Streamline software procurement – Explores how private marketplaces streamline software procurement across organizations, providing governance and efficiency.
  5. Streamline Private Marketplace product requests – Outlines how to streamline private marketplace approvals using notifications to expedite procurement processes.
  6. Best Practices for Procurement Teams Using AWS Marketplace – Highlights best practices to optimize software procurement processes, from vendor selection to contract management, for AWS Marketplace users.

 

About Authors

Elhadj Barry Marketplace Specialist PSA, AWS Partner

DC-based AWS Marketplace specialist solutions architect with a focus on AWS Marketplace governance and security. He is passionate about using Amazon Web Services (AWS) services to create innovative solutions that drive value and business outcomes.

Brandi Steckel Sr. BDM, EDU/SLG AWS Marketplace

Brandi leads state and local government and education AWS Marketplace sales, scale, and adoption at Amazon Web Services (AWS). She specializes in guidance on procurement paths for projects involving software and services. Brandi has developed nationwide state and local capture management practices and led federal, state and local, and education proposals and program management teams.