Datapipe, 2nd Watch Among Inaugural AWS MSP Partners

Amazon Web Services (AWS) says it has set a high bar for managed service providers (MSPs) to join its Managed Service Partner program, which is reflected in the program’s first participants.

AWS Chief Evangelist Jeff Barr announced AWS’s inaugural Managed Service Partner program participants in a blog post this week. Here’s who made the cut, and details about the program.

AWS approved six AWS Partner Network (APN) Consulting Partners to join its Managed Service Partner program:

Each of these MSPs possesses deep AWS knowledge and IT service management capabilities to deliver AWS’s cloud managed services, according to AWS APN Content Manager Kate Miller.

AWS uses an MSP audit process to evaluate all program candidates. It leverages third-party auditors who review an APN Partner’s MSP practice and capabilities, Miller said, and the audit process ultimately ensures “customers are able to identify APN Partners, both big and small, who have met [AWS’s] bar for cloud managed services.”

“Through the rigorous audit process, these APN Partners have been validated in their ability to help customers migrate their workloads to AWS and operate those workloads efficiently by following AWS operational and security best practices, while looking for ways to continuously optimize and save their customers money,” she wrote in a blog post.

Miller noted that AWS provides an MSP Validation Checklist to help MSPs prepare for third-party audits as well.

This checklist “focuses on a core set of managed service capabilities that all AWS Managed Service Providers should possess,” AWS Global Segment Leader for MSPs Kelly Hartman wrote in a blog post.

The AWS Managed Service Partner program was announced at re:Invent 2014, but AWS has worked with service providers for several years.

AWS quietly rolled out an MSP competency in June 2013. Currently, there are 875 MSP APN Consulting Partners, and 371 are located in the United States.

What are your thoughts on the AWS Managed Service Partner program? Share your thoughts about this story in the Comments section below, via Twitter @dkobialka or email me at [email protected].