AWS Announces New Partner Program To Drive Cloud Cost Efficiency

by Ty Trumbull • Apr 7, 2023

AWS has unveiled a new program designed to push partners to improve cloud cost efficiency and ROI for customers.

AWS Cloud Operations Competency is designed to highlight partners who have demonstrated technical proficiency and proven customer success in cloud operations, the company said. The program provides skills, marketing resources, and financial incentives to partners who achieve a certain level of competency.

AWS Cloud Operations Competency

“Today’s rapidly changing market conditions require organizations to scale IT operations swiftly and securely, while keeping costs under control. But setting up, running, and optimizing cloud infrastructure can be time-consuming and challenging for customers,” the company said in a blog post.

AWS has identified five solution areas that represent the technical abilities that it says are needed for an integrated approach to cloud operations. The program supports customers across those areas, including:

1. Cloud Financial Management: optimized cost management for services, tooling, and resources to organize and track cost and usage.
2. Cloud Governance: plan, build, and manage hybrid cloud environments that are secure, scalable, and cost-efficient.
3. Monitoring and Observability: monitor what is happening across the technology stack at any time.
4. Compliance and Auditing: operate in compliance landscapes that are complex, dynamic, and evolve rapidly.
5. Operations Management: plan and build centralized operations management of infrastructure and workloads on Amazon Web Services (AWS) and beyond.

Optimizing Cloud Environments

“Effective cloud operations have proven to be a great differentiator for companies of any size or maturity,” the company said. “According to a commissioned Forrester Consulting Total Economic Impact study conducted over a three-year period on behalf of Amazon Web Services (AWS), organizations attain a 241% return on investment (ROI) with cost savings of $3.4 million with an optimized cloud environment by enabling rapid time-to-market, promoting high developer productivity, and setting up resilient and secure cloud environments.”

Initial partners include IBM, Sumo Logic, Accenture, and Slalom, AWS announced.