7 Things Coming For AWS Partners

Amazon's massive cloud conference got going Tuesday with a slightly more intimate gathering of only a few thousand partners in a Las Vegas ballroom.

Terry Wise, AWS' vice president of alliances and channels, took the stage to deliver the keynote for the Global Partner Summit, the opening event for the fourth AWS re:Invent conference.

"We are simply living in what is the most exciting time in IT history," Wise told a ballroom packed with a diverse array of AWS partners.

[Related: Strange Bedfellows: AWS And Rackspace Tie The Knot At Re:Invent]

Wise shared seven nuggets of news that partners can expect to learn more about in the coming months.

Among them are new competencies, including one for partners interested in building an Internet of Things practice as AWS increasingly becomes the go-to platform for storing and processing massive lakes of data being created by millions of interconnected sensors and devices.

1. Amazon is preparing to launch a new training and certification program around security. That certification will have two components: Security Fundamentals and Security Operations on AWS.

2. Amazon will also soon unveil a DevOps competency program. AWS partners who specialize in implementing modern software processes, such as continuous integration and delivery and configuration management, will be able to obtain credentials endorsing those capabilities.

3. Amazon recognizes that hybrid clouds are important. Most enterprise customers get started by creating a hybrid connection between AWS and their on-premise data centers, Wise said, and Amazon will facilitate that process.

4. Amazon will allow users to provision dedicated EC2 hosts.

That doesn't sound extremely interesting, but the implications are tremendous. That move allows customers to bring server-based licenses, specifically Windows licenses, to Amazon's cloud, dramatically lowering the cost of running Windows and other licensed products on AWS, Wise said.

"Our Windows business is one of the fastest-growing at AWS," Wise said, and dedicated hosts are going to accelerate the Windows opportunities.

5. A migration competency is in the works. Consulting and technology partners will be eligible to earn that credential, which will be similar to what AWS has done with DevOps and managed services.

6. The Internet of Things competency represents a massive market opportunity for software partners and system integrators. IoT will be a $1.7 trillion market opportunity by 2020, according to an estimate from research firm IDC.

7. Finally, Amazon Web Services will invest even more in its partner ecosystem.

"This isn't new, we've been doing it for years now," Wise told partners. "But in 2016 we'll continue to expand investments in in our partner ecosystem."

That means more competencies, resources, subsidized proofs of concepts and free product trials.

PUBLISHED OCT. 6, 2015