Red Hat, Partners Collaborate on AWS New Test Drive Demos

Red Hat (RHT) is leveraging the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Test Drives program to demo Red Hat-based solutions to customers, the companies have announced. The demo program is in collaboration with selected Red Hat partners.

Red Hat said the collaboration enables users to “quickly and easily explore and deploy ready-made solutions built on Red Hat technologies.”

These new test drives from Red Hat include the following partners: Citytech, Inc., a provider of digital strategy, web experience management and cloud management services; Shadow-Soft, an open source systems integrator; and Vizuri, a systems integrator and reseller.

“Citytech, Shadow-Soft, and Vizuri are our three of our top partners in North America,” Red Hat North America Channel Sales Senior Director Bob Wilson, told The VAR Guy. Wilson recently took over channel chief responsibilities with Red Hat North America Channel Sales Director Jerry Lumpkin,

He added: “We felt they could deliver interesting Red Hat-based solutions that would generate customer interest.”

This is first time Red Hat Hat has collaborated with any partners in conjunction with the AWS test drives, Wilson said.

The open source company made the decision to “collaborate with AWS due to the breadth of their ecosystem, their position in the cloud space and the ability they give us to generate leads and opportunities for Red Hat and our partners using the test drive framework,” he said.

Wilson said Red Hat plans to make additional test drive opportunities available for other Red Hat partners including independent software vendors (ISVs), system integrators (SIs) and value-added resellers (VARs).

“The test drives lend themselves to complex solutions, so partners that have offerings that require multiple steps, components and complexity to display to an end customers are optimal candidates,” he said. “However, any solution-based offering that solves a specific customer issue would make a good test drive.”

Any partner interested in test drive opportunities with Red Hat can send an inquiry to awstestdrives”at”redhat.com, Wilson said.

He added that “more information will be forthcoming” on additional test drive opportunities for Red Hat partners.