AWS Establishes ‘Service Ready’ Certification For Partner Product Integrations

'Right now, the process for how customers are able to tell which products are well-integrated is not that simple,' says Doug Yeum, AWS’ head of worldwide channels and alliances.

A new Amazon Web Services program rolled out Wednesday will help AWS customers find validated partner products that integrate with AWS Lambda, AWS PrivateLink, Amazon Redshift and Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS).

New AWS channel chief Doug Yeum introduced the AWS Service Ready Program during his keynote address Wednesday at the Global Partner Summit at the AWS re:Invent conference in Las Vegas.

The products available through the AWS Service Ready Program are validated by AWS solution architects for high availability, proper architecture and proven customer success.

The new AWS Partner Network (APN) program is designed to reduce the time customers spend finding the right partner products that are well-integrated with AWS services they are currently using in their cloud environments.

“It's a program that validates APN consulting partners' proven experience delivering specific services to our customers,” said Yeum, AWS’ head of worldwide channels and alliances. “Our customers want APN technology products that are well integrated with AWS, but right now, the process for how customers are able to tell which products are well-integrated is not that simple. Customers have to basically evaluate and test those applications themselves or have to reach out to our service teams or our partner teams to have them help with the recommendation. This process slows down our customers, and we don't like that.”

For each service, partners must meet a set of criteria that are set by the AWS service team and the general principles of AWS’ Well-Architected Framework.

For the AWS Service Ready Program's launch, AWS technology partners' products already have been validated for their integrations with AWS PrivateLink and Amazon Redshift, and AWS currently is accepting applications from partners for AWS Lambda and Amazon RDS.

Participating partners will be showcased on the corresponding AWS service pages and the AWS Partner Solutions Finder, and they’ll receive support through go-to-market initiatives, including email promotion to help connect with AWS customers.

“They will get highlighted to our field sales teams, and they will be eligible to receive leads and opportunities from AWS,” Yeum said.

AWS Service Ready Partners also will be invited to participate in exclusive NDA road map events in 2020, where they can learn about upcoming changes to designated AWS services.