New AWS End User Computing Competency Partners ‘Help Raise the Tide’

Amazon Web Services is helping end users handle the ever-harder security and compliance requirements tied to endpoints, applications and data, especially as more people work outside of a physical office, act as contractors and as organizations pursue digital transformation.

To address the challenges, the cloud giant has certified the first channel partners, 15 total, throughout the world as experts in the new AWS End User Computing Competency. In short, the associated solutions allow end users to access company resources from anywhere.

AWS’ Renata Melnyk

The partners “can support your company’s need to provision, protect and get intelligence from endpoint devices, end-user apps and data on AWS,” Renata Melnyk, senior partner program manager at AWS, wrote in a blog.

Earning the AWS Competency designation was not easy. The 15 partners underwent “rigorous validation,” Melnyk wrote, as well as assessments of the security, performance and reliability of their AWS offerings and practices. Validation included:

• A minimum of four unique, in-depth AWS case studies specific to completed End User Computing technology projects.
• Demonstrated domain expertise in End User Computing technologies and workloads, complete with “innovative solutions” running on AWS.
• At least 12 months’ worth of blog posts, videos, press articles, and so on, available to the public.
• Documented access management strategy, including but not limited to: IAM users, symmetric access keys, asymmetric X.509 certificates, console passwords, and hardware or virtual multifactor authentication devices.
• Evidence of stringent data and security protections.
• Demonstrations of capabilities, processes, customer examples.

All that rigor proves the certified partners can enable a range of benefits. Alscient, a U.K.-based integrator, positions its AWS End User Computing Competency as facilitating a standardized desktop build that “can be securely provisioned in minutes, reducing corporate risk to common web threats.”

From there, a cloud-hosted platform hosts user management, while secure desktop access comes with options to restrict accesses as needed; for example, by network IPs and Active Directory domains, the company explains on its website.

New York-based Innovation Solutions also holds the AWS End User Computing Competency designation.

“Our singular focus is to enable every one of our customers to become a technology company,” said Justin Copie, Innovative Solutions CEO said in a press release. “Our hope is to enable growth, not only within our own business, but across technology companies in the region. If we can help raise the tide, then all boats rise. Together we win.”

Olikka, an Australian systems integrator, agreed.

“This latest achievement further demonstrates AWS’ commitment to their partners and, most importantly, customers,” said Ross Gangemi, solutions director for Olikka.

In specific, the 15 partners with the End User Computing Competency help customers with strategy, professional services, infrastructure management, repeatable intellectual property, and optimization of end-user computing technologies on AWS, Melnyk noted.

“When you deploy End User Computing solutions on AWS, you can maintain security over your data, improve user productivity, simplify IT operations and enable builders to be more innovative,” she wrote. “End User Computing services on AWS include Amazon WorkSpaces, Amazon AppStream 2.0, Amazon WorkDocs and Amazon WorkLink.”

She went on to describe the offerings as those that provide a resource brokering mechanism (control plane), visualization/remote display protocol, and an application execution environment, with either the control plane and/or application execution environment running on AWS. Along the way, the certified partners are tasked with adhering to AWS best practices for building cloud infrastructure.

The new AWS End User Computing Competency Advanced and Premier Consulting Partners are: Alscient Limited, API Systems, BlazeClan Technologies, CloudHesive, CMD Solutions, Consegna, EagleDream, Innovative Solutions, Nuvens, Olikka, Privo, Rebura, RedNight, Serverworks and SynchroNet.