AWS’ Sandy Carter Talks Public Sector Initiatives for Partners
The world’s largest cloud computing provider is holding its AWS Summit Washington, D.C., this week.
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This news will perhaps thrill partners the most: AWS is responding to the channel’s repeated requests to be invited to more deals.
“It’s really a win-win for the partner and the customer,” Carter said.
AWS, then, is launching ProServe Ready. The program trains and matches AWS partners to AWS professional services subcontractors.
“There may be a portion of that contract that we need help on,” Carter said.
ProServe Ready underwent a pilot this past June. Participants — who will join on an invite-only basis for at least a while — must go through extensive training. They will need to know ProServe processes and best practices throughout their organizations before they can engage.
ProServe Ready first will target the United States and EMEA.
AWS’ public acknowledgment of partners’ entreaties for more inclusion came at the last in-person re:Invent conference, Carter said.
Hybrid work “will become a permanent fixture,” Carter told Channel Futures.
With that in mind, Zoom — whose new releases support the mix of hybrid and on-premises work — now is a member of the Amazon Partner Network.
And it’s going to join the AWS Marketplace.
Zoom’s focus as an AWS partner lies in the public sector, including nonprofits, education, public safety and government. Channel partners focused on this vertical will benefit because they’ll be able to offer two versions of Zoom: the regular platform and Zoom for Government. That version is FedRAMP-authorized and adheres to the federal government’s stringent security requirements.
Federal cybersecurity requirements are growing more stringent as public sector organizations often take the brunt of virtual attacks. In response, Splunk, Telos and StackArmor, a consultancy, have teamed up under the Authority to Operate on AWS program. Under that auspices, they developed FASTTR, or Faster ATO with Splunk, Telos and ThreatAlert for regulated markets. The effort helps partners cut down on the time and cost tied to ATO compliance.
“We had a chance to help bring our partners together … and work together to deliver something of real value for public sector,” Carter said.
FASTTR combines three cybersecurity solutions. It will help independent software providers and regulated defense contractors who must comply with security regulations including FedRAMP, FISMA and CMMC, and soon, StateRAMP.
StackArmor’s ThreatAlert ATO Accelerator delivers a dedicated AWS Landing Zone with NIST–compliant security services. It also features an ATO documentation package generated using Xacta, Telos’ cyber risk management and compliance automation platform built with AWS capabilities.
ThreatAlert also uses Splunk’s security information event management to meet continuous monitoring and auditability requirements.
Splunk, Telos and StackArmor have independently helped a number of customers obtain FedRAMP ATOs. Now they’re streamlining the process by meeting new cybersecurity requirements that call for threat hunting, enhanced logging, controls automation and inheritance, and more.
Targeting the health care vertical? At AWS, this industry falls under the public sector umbrella. As such, AWS partner Electronic Caregiver unveiled ADDI at AWS Summit.
ADDI is a virtual caregiver. Electronic Caregiver built it on AWS’ artificial intelligence and machine learning. ADDI provides caregivers real-time information. It uses IoT sensors, voice interface via Amazon Polly and Amazon Lex, natural language processing, and data analytics and reporting.
Electronic Caregiver also created Addison, their patient-facing virtual caregiver application.
“Addison looks like a real person and a lot of patients who talk with her view her as a real person,” Carter said.
To that point, Addison is undergoing beta testing in homes right now. It will become generally available to partners.
Electronic Caregiver worked with regional public health officials, hospital systems and universities in New Mexico to implement a COVID-to-home program to address a surge in COVID-19 cases.
A hefty number of organizations still store workloads in the cloud, according to AWS. Knowing that, the company “wanted to find easier ways for customers and partners to do migration,” Carter said.
“Migration is a top AWS priority,” she added.
Because of that, Amazon Managed Services joined forces with partner Smartronix to provide NextGen MSP services. Smartronix is the first AWS MSP to achieve FedRAMP compliance. The channel partner calls its offering for public sector and regulated industries Cloud Assured Managed Services, or CAMS.
CAMS is fully integrated with AMS Accelerate and accredited for FedRAMP moderate and is DoD SRG IL4/5-compliant. It’s available in the AWS Marketplace.
AWS says its Partner Government Competency now stands out as the largest of its competency programs.
More than 100 partners now comprise the initiative.
Earning an AWS competency proves that a partner has the mettle and expertise to serve customers in certain areas. The training and validation are rigorous.
“The competency is really hard to get,” Carter said.
Last week, VMware said that its platform, VMware Cloud on AWSGovCloud, had achieved FedRAMP Agency Authority to operate at the High Impact Level. That means U.S. public-sector agencies may migrate – and modernize – their VMware vSphere workloads with VMware Cloud and AWS GovCloud US.
On Monday, AWS said VMware on AWS is now FedRAMP High.
VMware used ATO on AWS to achieve FedRAMP High Agency ATO. AWS worked with VMware to build and validate the solution design and road map.
AWS partners now may sell VMware on AWS.
Last week, VMware said that its platform, VMware Cloud on AWSGovCloud, had achieved FedRAMP Agency Authority to operate at the High Impact Level. That means U.S. public-sector agencies may migrate – and modernize – their VMware vSphere workloads with VMware Cloud and AWS GovCloud US.
On Monday, AWS said VMware on AWS is now FedRAMP High.
VMware used ATO on AWS to achieve FedRAMP High Agency ATO. AWS worked with VMware to build and validate the solution design and road map.
AWS partners now may sell VMware on AWS.
Public sector demand for cloud computing is growing.
AWS’ Sandy Carter
“COVID really accelerated governments to act like startups and they have a huge appetite for migration and modernizing what they’re doing.”
That’s the word from Sandy Carter, vice president of worldwide public sector partners and programs at Amazon Web Services.
Carter is a key figure at this week’s AWS Summit Washington, D.C., which zeroes in on public sector needs and innovations — and, of course, channel partners.
Managed service providers, system integrators, independent software vendors, consultants and other third-party experts are key to AWS’ cloud strategy. The provider therefore is “helping them with mission, modernization and migration for 2021,” Carter told Channel Futures.
With that in mind, check out our slideshow above highlighting the biggest partner-related announcements coming out of AWS Summit Washington, D.C.
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