Why work with an AWS partner?

A couple of weeks ago I attended an AWS Summit, one of a series of events where Amazon Web Services presents its latest features to its users and evangelises its cloud services to professional prospects. Apart from the main auditorium, there was one major exhibition area: the Partners Zone.

You could ask yourself: why is AWS leaving so much of the field to third parties? Don’t they have an enterprise strategy like IBM or HP? 

The answer would be: no, they have a completely different business model than traditional IT suppliers. And, yes, they sure do have an enterprise strategy, probably one of the most powerful this industry has ever seen. 

But, importantly, AWS’s core business is based on service innovation. They focus on broadening and improving the tools, processes and infrastructure that have disrupted a whole market and that keep them at the top of all cloud platforms rankings in the world. However, they do not manage services: that is where the partners come in.

[easy-tweet tweet=”AWS does not manage services: that is where the partners come in” user=”sergi_mkt” hashtags=”AWS, Cloud”]

Instead of building a market channel, a sales network and hundreds of local management teams from the ground up, the leader of the so-called public clouds trusts certified managed service providers to advise, build and deploy tailored solutions to end customers. Meanwhile, AWS concentrates on improving its efficiency and economies of scale, and partners take advantage of one of the most advanced modern cloud infrastructures. 

And the customers, what do they get?

After two years helping organisations migrate to AWS, I see four main benefits a company can gain from dealing with an official AWS partner:

1. Expertise: like with anything in life, when you are about to try something new it is wise to have someone who has done it before by your side. A DevOps team with experience on many other projects, ideally from the same vertical as you, can save huge amounts of time – and money!
2. Proximity: Having a single, local point of contact for dealing with all their cloud issues means a lot to many customers. They want a specialised team that speaks their language, knows their people and business and, in most cases, that can monitor their platform 24/7 to proactively identify and resolve problems.
3. Simplicity: while the partner takes care of all the tough stuff, you can focus on improving your applications. Some partners can also deal with all the billing so that the customer only gets one bill with both infrastructure and service management costs.
4. Continuous improvement: your application, your users’ behaviour and, ultimately, your business, change constantly – shouldn’t your cloud platform? AWS experts can help you in predicting changes, optimising resource use and detecting opportunities. Also, a team that follows the latest AWS news, service upgrades and discount announcements can ensure that you are always up-to-date.

These are four simple yet powerful reasons that make the AWS Partner Network one of the most efficient business environments in the tech market nowadays, and partially explain the high adoption rate Amazon Web Services has achieved in so many countries and in so short a time. 

[easy-tweet tweet=”The #AWS Partner Network is one of the most efficient business environments in the #tech market” user=”sergi_mkt” usehashtags=”no”]

Of course, a company can build its own team to manage a cloud solution on AWS. As long as they are expert technicians, officially certified by AWS and with a proven track record in managing cloud services across multiple scenarios, they can be in charge of something that critical. However, the company behind should also make sure this IT team keeps up to date with all AWS service releases, infrastructure improvements and costs reductions. Otherwise, they run the risk of becoming technologically outdated.

At the end of the day, it all comes down to how crucial your cloud platform is to your business, and how short you need your target time-to-market to be.