New AWS Competency For ISVs Migrating Microsoft Workloads

'It's a great way for partners to differentiate, but it's also in a high-demand area,' says Kelly Hartman, AWS' global head of the APN.

A new Amazon Web Services competency will validate independent software vendors' skills and experience in migrating customers’ Microsoft workloads to AWS.

AWS technology partners can earn the AWS Microsoft Workloads Competency competency in three Microsoft workloads technology categories – migration, operational optimization, and data, analytics and machine learning (ML).

The new track complements the long-standing AWS Microsoft Workloads Competency track for AWS Partner Network (APN) consulting partners in productivity, database and application modernization.

AWS unveiled the new competency today in conjunction with its AWS Summit New York.

More than 57 percent of Windows workloads in the public cloud run on AWS – almost two times more than the closest cloud provider, Sandy Carter, vice president of AWS Windows and enterprise workloads, wrote in a blog post today, citing a 2017 statistic from research firm IDC.

Carter said customers often ask her why they should run their Windows workloads on AWS.

“I love to quote our CEO, Andy Jassy, who says, ‘There is no compression algorithm for experience,’” she said. “Customers have been running Windows workloads on Amazon Web Services for over a decade. From that experience, we are able to optimize our platform and innovate on behalf of customers. The number of AWS enterprise customers using Amazon EC2 for Windows Server has grown 5X since 2015.”

AWS has more than 14,000 active Windows Server and SQL Server partners, according to Carter.

To achieve the new competency, AWS technology partners must undergo a technical validation by AWS Solutions Architects. The competency debuted with 13 launch partners.

“It's a great way for partners to differentiate, but it's also in a high-demand area,” Kelly Hartman, AWS' global head of the APN, told CRN. “And it's the case where a lot of our partners, both technology and consulting, had that experience before, and now they're able to convert that experience to AWS.”

Migration partners’ technologies provide pre-migration assessment and planning, or automate and manage the migration of Microsoft Workloads. Launch partners are Cloudamize, CloudChomp, CloudBasic, Information Builders, Movere, RiverMeadow Software and Turbonomic.

Partners earning the competency in the operational optimization category provide technologies that optimize and automate Microsoft Workloads on AWS in the areas of security, availability and manageability. CloudBasic, CloudCheckr, Datadog, FuseForward, Movere, SentryOne, SIOS Technology and Turbonomic already have earned the status.

CloudBasic, DataSunrise and Information Builders are the launch partners for the competency's data, analytics and ML category, which validates independent software vendors whose technologies prepare, transform, analyze and govern data in Microsoft SQL Server for the purpose of data analytics and ML on AWS.