AWS Debuts 2 New Competencies, Makes CloudFront ‘Ready’ for Its Partners

Amazon Web Services on Thursday debuted two new competencies plus the CloudFront Ready Program, which focuses more on vendors than on the indirect channel.

First up, the new Enterprise Container Management Competency, part of the cloud computing provider’s existing container management certification.

“AWS customers use containers as the fundamental unit of compute to deploy both existing and net-new workloads like microservices, big data, machine-learning models and batch jobs,” AWS wrote in an April 14 blog.

Because of that demand, AWS is adding the enterprise aspect to its container competency. Partners who earn the validation will show that their products help customers administer container infrastructure (think networks, load balancers, perimeter security) and containerized workloads (tasks, pods, services, namespaces, quotas) across different environments, AWS said.

Enterprise Container Competency launch partners include Nirmata Kubernetes Manager, Pulumi and Rafay Systems.

Next up, the DevSecOps Competency.

This new validation comes as part of AWS’ existing DevOps certification. AWS is offering the capability so customers can find partners proven in DevSecOps. AWS says that identifying and addressing a security issue early in the application development life cycle reduces risk and cost, and improves productivity. Often, however, security teams slow down new-feature launches. Yet, if DevSecOps makes security a key part of application development and delivery, delays will be avoided, according to AWS.

AWS says the DevSecOps products in its new category provide multiple layers of protection across all stages of the delivery life cycle. As such, they do the following:

• Scan application and infrastructure code and cloud configurations for violations of security standards or policy.
• Monitor applications at runtime.
• Help run security testing.
• Scan third-party libraries for supply chain vulnerabilities.
• Protect against and remediate violations.

DevSecOps launch partners include Checkmarx, Contrast Security, HashiCorp, Snyk, Sysdig, Veracode and WhiteSource.

Are You CloudFront Ready?

AWS’ final announcement applies more to channel-friendly vendors than to MSPs, resellers and the like directly. To that end, AWS said it has opened its 12-year-old CloudFront content delivery network to partners (in this case, pretty much vendors) that specialize in media management, security, monitoring and analytics, and transfer acceleration. CloudFront serves as a CDN throughout the world, supporting companies including Hulu, Slack and Marriott International.

To get into the new CloudFront Ready Program (part of the Service Ready Program), participants have to be members of ISV Partner Path and pass the Foundational Technical Review before applying. They then must have their CloudFront content delivery software validated through the AWS Service Ready Program.

Inaugural CloudFront Ready members include Cequence Security, Cloudinary, F5 Networks and ZenLayer. There may be a pass-through opportunity for MSPs or resellers, though.