AWS Partner Network (APN) Blog

Tod Golding is an AWS Partner Solutions Architect (SA). He works closely with our SaaS Partner ecosystem. 

If you’re designing a true multi-tenant software as a service (SaaS) solution, you’re likely to devote a significant amount of time to selecting a strategy for effectively partitioning your system’s tenant data. On Amazon Web Services (AWS), your partitioning options mirror much of what you see in the wild. However, if you’re looking at using Amazon DynamoDB, you’ll find that the global, managed nature of this NoSQL database presents you with some new twists that will likely influence your approach.

Before we dig into the specifics of the DynamoDB options, let’s look at the traditional models that are generally applied to achieve tenant data partitioning. The list of partitioning solutions typically includes the following variations:

• Separate database – each tenant has a fully isolated database with its own representation of the data
• Shared database, separate schema – tenants all reside in the same database, but each tenant can have its own representation of the data
• Shared everything – tenants all reside in the same database and all leverage a universal representation of the data

These options all have their strengths and weaknesses. If, for example, you’d like to support the ability for tenants to have their own data customizations, you might want to lean toward a model that supports separate schemas. If that’s not the case, you’ll likely prefer a more unified schema. Security and isolation requirements are also key factors that could shape your strategy. Ultimately, the specific needs of your solutions will steer you toward one or more of these approaches. In some cases, where a system is decomposed into more granular services, you may see situations where multiple strategies are applied. The requirements of each service may dictate which flavor of partitioning best suits that service.

With this as a backdrop, let’s look at how these partitioning models map to the different partitioning approaches that are available with DynamoDB.

Linked Account Partitioning (Separate Database)

This model is by far the most extreme of the available options. Its focus is on providing each tenant with its own table namespace and footprint with DynamoDB. While this seems like a fairly basic goal, it is not easily achieved. DynamoDB does not have the notion of an instance or some distinct, named construct that can be used to partition a collection of tables. In fact, all the tables that are created by DynamoDB are global to a given region.

Given these scoping characteristics, the best option for achieving this level of isolation is to introduce separate linked AWS accounts for each tenant. To leverage this approach, you need to start by enabling the AWS Consolidated Billing feature. This option allows you to have a parent payer account that is then linked to any number of child accounts.

Once the linked account mechanism is established, you can then provision a separate linked account for each new tenant (shown in the following diagram). These tenants would then have distinct AWS account IDs and, in turn, have a scoped view of DynamoDB tables that are owned by that account.

While this model has its advantages, it is often cumbersome to manage. It introduces a layer of complexity and automation to the tenant provisioning lifecycle. It also seems impractical and unwieldy for environments where there might be a large collection of tenants. Caveats aside, there are some nice benefits that are natural byproducts of this model. Having this hard line between accounts makes it a bit simpler to manage the scope and schema of each tenant’s data. It also provides a rather natural model for evaluating and metering a tenant’s usage of AWS resources.

Tenant Table Name Partitioning (Shared Database, Separate Schema)

The linked account model represents a more concrete separation of tenant data. A less invasive approach would be to introduce a table naming schema that adds a unique tenant context to each DynamoDB table. The following diagram represents a simplified version of this approach, prepending a tenant ID (T1, T2, and T3) to each table name to identify the tenant’s ownership of the table.

This model embraces all the freedoms that come with an isolated tenant scheme, allowing each tenant to have its own unique data representation. With this level of granularity, you’ll also find that this aligns your tenants with other AWS constructs. These include:

• The ability to apply AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) roles at the table level allows you to constrain table access to a given tenant role.
• Amazon CloudWatch metrics can be captured at the table level, simplifying the aggregation of tenant metrics for storage activity.
• IOPS is applied at the table level, allowing you to create distinct scaling policies for each tenant.

Provisioning also can be somewhat simpler under this model since each tenant’s tables can be created and managed independently.

The downside of this model tends to be more on the operational and management side. Clearly, with this approach, your operational views of a tenant will require some awareness of the tenant table naming scheme in order to filter and present information in a tenant-centric context. The approach also adds a layer of indirection to any code you might have that is metering tenant consumption of DynamoDB resources.

Tenant Index Partitioning (Shared Everything)

Index-based partitioning is perhaps the most agile and common technique that is applied by SaaS developers. This approach places all the tenant data in the same table(s) and partitions it with a DynamoDB index. This is achieved by populating the hash key of an index with a tenant’s unique ID. This essentially means that the keys that would typically be your hash key (Customer ID, Account ID, etc.) are now represented as range keys.  The following example provides a simplified view of an index that introduces a tenant ID as a hash key. Here, the customer ID is now represented as a range key.

This model, where the data for every tenant resides in a shared representation, simplifies many aspects of the multi-tenant model. It promotes a unified approach to managing and migrating the data for all tenants without requiring a table-by-table processing of the information. It also enables a simpler model for performing tenant-wide analytics of the data. This can be extremely helpful in assessing and profiling trends in the data.

Of course, there are also limitations with this model. Chief among these is the inability to have more granular, tenant-centric control over access, performance, and scaling. However, some may view this as an advantage since it allows you to have a more global set of policies that respond to the load of all tenants instead of absorbing the load of maintaining policies on a tenant-by-tenant basis. When you choose your partitioning approach, you’ll likely strike a balance between these tradeoffs.

Another consideration here is that this approach could be viewed as creating a single point of failure. Any problem with the shared table could affect the entire population of tenants.

Abstracting Client Access

Each technique outlined in this blog post requires some awareness of tenant context. Every attempt to access data for a tenant requires acquiring a unique tenant identifier and injecting that identifier into any requests to manage data in DynamoDB.

Of course, in most cases, end-users of the data should have no direct knowledge that their provider is a tenant of your service. Instead, the solution you build should introduce an abstraction layer that acquires and applies the tenant context to any DynamoDB interactions.

This data access layer will also enhance your ability to add security checks and business logic outside of your partitioning strategies, with minimal impact to end-users.

Supporting Multiple Environments

As you think about partitioning, you may also need to consider how the presence of multiple environments (development, QA, production, etc.) might influence your approach. Each partitioning model we’ve discussed here would require an additional mechanism to associate tables with a given environment.

The strategy for addressing this problem varies based on the partitioning scheme you’ve adopted. The linked account model is the least affected, since the provisioning process will likely just create separate accounts for each environment. However, with table name and index-based partitioning, you’ll need to introduce an additional qualifier to your naming scheme that will identify the environment associated with each table.

The key takeaway is that you need to be thinking about whether and how environments might also influence your entire build and deployment lifecycle. If you’re building for multiple environments, the context of those environments likely need to be factored into your overall provisioning and naming scheme.

Microservice Considerations

With the shift toward microservice architectures, teams are decomposing their SaaS solutions into small, autonomous services. A key tenant of this architectural model is that each service must encapsulate, manage, and own its representation of data. This means that each service can leverage whichever partitioning approach best aligns with the requirements and performance characteristics of that service.

The other factor to consider is how microservices might influence the identity of your DynamoDB tables. With each service owning its own storage, the provisioning process needs assurance that the tables it’s creating for a given service are guaranteed to be unique. This typically translates into adding some notion of the service’s identity into the actual name of the table. A catalog manager service, for example, might have a table that is an amalgam of the tenant ID, the service name, and the logical table name. This may or may not be necessary, but it’s certainly another factor you’ll want to keep in mind as you think about the naming model you’ll use when tables are being provisioned.

Agility vs. Isolation

It’s important to note that there is no single preferred model for the solutions that are outlined in this blog post. Each model has its merits and applicability to different problem domains. That being said, it’s also important to consider agility when you’re building SaaS solutions. Agility is fundamental to the success of many SaaS organizations and it’s essential that teams consider how each partitioning model might influence its ability to continually deploy and evolve both applications and business.

Each variation outlined here highlights some of the natural tension that exists in SaaS design. In picking a partitioning strategy, you must balance the simplicity and agility of a fully shared model with the security and variability offered by more isolated models.

The good news is that DynamoDB supports all the mechanisms you’ll need to implement each of the common partitioning models. As you dig deeper into DynamoDB, you’ll find that it actually aligns nicely with many of the core SaaS values. As a managed service, DynamoDB allows you to shift the burden of management, scale, and availability directly to AWS. The schemaless nature of DynamoDB also enables a level of flexibility and agility that is crucial to many SaaS organizations.

Kicking the Tires

The best way to really understand the merits of each of these partitioning models is to simply dig in and get your hands dirty. It’s important to examine the overall provisioning lifecycle of each partitioning approach and determine how and where it would fit into a broader build and deployment lifecycle. You’ll also want to look more carefully at how these partitioning models interact with AWS constructs. Each approach has nuances that can influence the experience you’ll get with the console, IAM roles, CloudWatch metrics, billing, and so on. Naturally, the fundamentals of how you’re isolating tenants and the requirements of your domain are also going to have a significant impact on the approach you choose.

Are you building SaaS on AWS? Check out the AWS SaaS Partner Program, an APN Program providing Technology Partners with support to build, launch, and grow SaaS solutions on AWS.

Last year, I had the pleasure of attending a number of our AWS Summits, including the San Francisco, New York, Chicago, and London Summits. Without a doubt, my favorite part of attending the different Summits was not only getting to chat with the APN Partners who sponsored, but getting to see our partners in action. I meandered through the Expo Hall and watched as our Consulting and Technology Partners engaged with both AWS customers and AWS employees, and demonstrated the value that they bring customers on AWS. And as someone who has spent a lot of time learning and writing about some of the awesome work our partners have done together, it was also exciting to see partners connecting with one another. We’ve now launched the 2016 AWS Summits website, and with a number of our Summits fast approaching, it seems like a great time to discuss the different opportunities you have to sponsor AWS Summits around the world.

Why Sponsor an AWS Summit?

What are your plans for reaching your target customer base in 2016? Do you hope to grow your network in a particular region?

AWS Summits are regionally focused, meaning that most of the attendees are based in or near the region where the Summit is being held. As an AWS Partner, this provides you with a great opportunity to foster relationships with your existing customers in-region, and to network with regionally targeted attendees before, during, and after the event itself. You can also connect with other AWS Partners who are focused within that region, and learn more about different opportunities to work together to drive additional value for customers on AWS.

Our goal is to help you make the most of any sponsorship activities you undertake, and you have a lot of options depending on the level of sponsorship. The AWS Sponsorship team has built comprehensive Sponsorship packages for 2016, including Gold, Silver, and Bronze sponsorship packages. Each package includes exhibitor resources, marketing and promotion resources, and for Gold and Silver sponsors, premier resources.

Read more about some of the benefits other partners have gained through AWS Sponsorship here.

Learn More 

Our first Summits are kicking off in April in Bogota, Berlin, Milan, Chicago, Kuala Lumpur, Sydney, Singapore, and Buenos Aires. Want to check out all of the Global AWS Sponsorship Opportunities? Click here to download the calendar.

For specific sponsorship information on the April AWS Summits, click the following links to download each sponsorship prospectus:

• Berlin
• Chicago
• Kuala Lumpur
• Sydney
• Singapore

Contact awssummit-sponsorship@amazon.com for more information.

Christopher Crosbie MPH, MS and AWS Partner Network (APN) Solutions Architect

As a Healthcare and Life Science-focused Partner Solutions Architect, I have an opportunity to meet with a variety of APN partners who are using cloud computing to enhance the healthcare and life science industries. I also gain insight into the way our APN partners and customers make use of cloud technologies in the health tech field by attending key industry events.

For more than 100 years, Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) has hosted an annual meeting to bring together an international community of radiologists, medical physicists, and other medical professionals. This conference presents the latest developments and upcoming innovations in the technically advanced field of radiology imaging. It’s a great place to first learn about upcoming enhancements to the healthcare industry.

Massive file sizes and long retention rates have made the cloud an attractive storage option for radiology IT. The shift away from traditional storage systems has been subtle in the industry thus far, but it’s certainly not new. Radiology vendors have seen the benefits experienced by industry leaders such as Philips Healthcare, who have already embraced and succeeded in the cloud.

Nevertheless, this year’s RSNA conference seemed to be a turning point for the cloud storage option in radiology equipment – for the first time, the cloud seemed to be a ubiquitous storage solution option throughout the innovations and developments presented at the conference sessions. Now that “cloud-ready” storage equipment is reaching clinical users, the industry is beginning to see cloud-native applications built on top of imaging data that unlock information in ways not previously anticipated or even thought possible.

One of the leaders and most innovative companies unlocking the potential of cloud-stored imaging data is AWS Partner Network (APN) Advanced Technology Partner and AWS Healthcare Competency Partner Calgary Scientific with their ResolutionMD application. This technology is built on top of the PureWeb software platform that provides advanced web, mobility, and cloud enablement solutions for industries looking for secure access to their data or graphics-intensive applications while continuing to use their existing systems.

When Calgary Scientific demonstrates its products at conferences like RSNA, the presentation starts with a very high-powered server directly connected to the conference environment. The presenter then switches from the local server and does the same demo using AWS and asks the audience, “Did you notice a difference?” The answer is always a resounding, “No.” With no degradation in user experience, the discussion turns to the benefits that cloud and AWS offers clinical users.

I wanted to learn more about ResolutionMD and how Calgary Scientific was able to migrate this highly compute-intensive, complex, and yet responsive application over to AWS, so I sat down with Dan Pigat, VP Products – Cloud & Collaboration, Calgary Scientific. However, my line of questioning on complex system migration was quickly cut short when Dan chuckled at my premise and informed me that their migration to the cloud was simple: “It just worked.” So Dan and I began to discuss the impact of cloud capabilities on end users in the many industries Calgary Scientific serves.

About the PureWeb software platform

To understand the success of Calgary Scientific’s ResolutionMD, it’s important to know the history of PureWeb, the software underlying the ResolutionMD technology. Dan took me through a quick crash course.

The PureWeb SDK came into existence soon after the launches of AWS (March 2006) and the Apple iPhone (June 2007). “In a way, these three technologies have grown up together,” Dan tells me. “Our focus was on adapting existing 2D and 3D applications to run on the cloud and then access them on any web browser or mobile device, connecting these two worlds.”

The initial target for this software was the medical industry – a sector with the most rigorous demands for access, visually rich data, privacy, security, and scalability. The ResolutionMD product was developed on top of PureWeb to provide clinical grade medical imaging to the mobile world. Clinicians can use it on web and mobile devices to access the same quality medical imaging that historically was only available on expensive equipment in hospital and laboratory settings. ResolutionMD is FDA-cleared and gaining fast acceptance in the industry, with Calgary Scientific having established more than 50 partnerships with companies like Siemens, Fuji and McKesson due to ResolutionMD’s seamless connectivity into existing Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS).

The PureWeb software platform has recently been expanding into new industries such as design, manufacturing and energy. Despite the vast differences between these industries and their underlying technological needs, “their trajectory with cloud adoption is surprisingly similar,” Dan tells me. He sees a lot of parallels in their use of the cloud’s capabilities.

Moving from expert opinion to interactions 

The role of a radiologist is often stereotyped as a solitary one – an expert sitting in a dark hospital basement reviewing images on specialized monitors who then creates reports for physicians. While this representation may be an exaggeration, radiology does diverge from other medical specialties in that it depends entirely on visual perception. Communication of the diagnostic interpretation is, therefore, a critical component of the radiologist’s expertise. Failure to communicate their findings accurately is the fourth most frequent allegation against radiologists in medical malpractice claims.

“With today’s technology, we can connect everyone to the same tools and data plus provide better ways to communicate,” Dan explains. Radiology does not need to be a secluded art. By leveraging cloud technology via applications like ResolutionMD, physicians can use their iPads, Android phones or any web browser from wherever they happen to be to review images alongside radiologists in real time. “This collaboration generates better interpretations and diagnosis,” says Dan. The same images can even be shared with patients on their own devices. This access, in conjunction with an expert clinical team, enables patients to be direct participants in the management of their own care.

This democratization of the data is not limited to the field of radiology. Dan goes on to explain that he is seeing similar excitement and potential from the manufacturing and construction industries. Colleagues on distant ends of a project can use the cloud and PureWeb to access Computer Aided Design (CAD) files in the same way images are now available in healthcare. CAD drawings have evolved from being one expert’s view on a project into a conversation between designers and those on the manufacturing floor or job site about how to best adapt designs into the real world.

Dan is reminded of a conversation he once had with a construction customer who was frustrated with the number of times the acronym, V.I.F. (a shorthand for Verify In Field), showed up on CAD drawings. “He was excited that cloud technologies morphed those V.I.F.s into a collaborative discussion in which all the stakeholders could contribute to finding the best possible project design,” he recalled.

Unlocking the data

The story of cloud and imaging may have started with a need to simply “put the data away.” With more capable CT and MRI scanners producing ever-larger files, data storage can be a daunting challenge. Many hospitals reach a saturation point where they need to move data to the cloud simply to meet requirements, such as retaining Medicare managed care program provider records for 10 years.

This essential requirement of storing the data cheaply and securely is being met with cloud services such as Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) and Amazon Glacier. Not only are these more cost effective options, but applications like ResolutionMD can open and enable full diagnostic reads of these studies directly from the cloud. The data is no longer locked away in offsite locations or on backup tape; cloud storage keeps this data accessible and available.

Dan’s excitement over what PureWeb customers are doing with this newfound ability is apparent as he lists applications that range from monitoring cancer tumor growth to tracking changes in oil and gas reservoirs. “We’ve only just started to uncover the myriad of opportunities available with these technologies,” he speculates.

Focus on the humans

As I asked Dan for some closing thoughts, he reminded me to focus on the end user and to try not to solely get wrapped up in the cool details of the technology itself. This resonated with me, as I’m admittedly a technologist who finds himself quickly enthralled by the underlying workings of the technology innovations that AWS drives.

However, Dan also had very good reason to present this reminder. He took me back to the early days of the cloud and PureWeb, when access over a network was slower than their dedicated systems. Dan says that many of the technologists at the time were disappointed by this and somewhat dismissed the cloud as an alternative. The clinical users, on the other hand, absolutely loved the technology. Even though interaction was slower on a mobile device, that time was nominal compared to alternatives such as driving thirty minutes to the hospital to respond to a page, which can cause a critical difference in care.

As the technologies have matured, Dan believes we’ve actually crossed a tipping point where large files rendered by powerful remote GPU’s can actually outperform local rendering on lower spec PC’s. But it’s still about people and giving them better access to the tools they need to do their jobs.

The result of this progress can be measured with examples like ResolutionMD, which provides significantly faster image access compared to standard of care image viewers. While this is possible due to advances in Amazon EC2 GPU instance types and web standards, we need to look at the actual impact on patients. Dan references a study done by a major healthcare institution which verified that the use of ResolutionMD on mobile devices resulted in an average 11-minute reduction in time to diagnosis for critical groups of patients (such as stroke victims where time equates to brain loss). With results like that, the impact of cloud and mobile technologies in healthcare becomes very apparent.

Speaking with innovative APN partners like Dan of Calgary Scientific makes me anxious for the exciting shift that is taking place with AWS and our APN partners across all industries. If recent innovations in radiation imaging technology are any indication, the future for both imaging and healthcare technology is extremely bright.

Take a look at the following demonstrative AWS reference diagram for a cloud-based ResolutionMD deployment:

To learn more about Calgary Scientific, visit the company’s AWS Partner Directory page.

Every year, AWS hosts a number of Summits around the globe. These events are a great opportunity for you to learn all about the latest announcements coming from AWS, attend educational bootcamps and sessions of interest to you to help you grow in your knowledge of AWS, connect with a large number of AWS customers and prospects, and network with other APN Partners.

Today, we released information on 2016 AWS Summits. Visit the AWS Summits webpage to view the different Summit dates and locations, and as you review the information, we encourage you to:

1. Save the dates for the events that are of interest to you.
2. Click on the “Want More Information” button to receive registration information when available.
3. Sign up for the AWS Events RSS feed.
4. Reach out to your AWS Partner Manager for more information on AWS events or services.

In addition to visiting the AWS Summits webpage, you can also subscribe to the AWS Events RSS feed, follow @AWSSummits on Twitter, and find us on Facebook to stay connected and up-to-date on AWS Summit news.

Another great opportunity for you as an APN Partner is AWS Summit Sponsorship. Click here to download the 2016 AWS Summit Sponsorship prospectus, and learn all about the different sponsorship opportunities for your firm.

We look forward to seeing you at AWS Summits throughout 2016!

If you’re working towards passing our third-party-led managed service provider audit to become an official AWS MSP Partner, then we have some exciting news for you. Our MSP team has just released the AWS Managed Service Program Validation Checklist, Version 3.0. The Validation Checklist has been updated to reflect the evolving and growing needs of our customer base, who are increasingly looking for next-generation MSPs to guide them in all phases of their journey on AWS.

What’s the Validation Checklist? 

As Kelly Hartman, AWS Global Segment Leader, MSPs, explained shortly after the launch of the AWS MSP Program, the AWS Managed Service Program Partner Validation checklist is the cornerstone of the MSP Program. The validation process was thoughfully designed in direct response to our customers’ desire to have a more standardized experience when engaging APN Partners. The goal is to enable customers to identify AWS MSPs who have unique capabilities specific to their managed service practice. The checklist provides the criteria necessary to achieve the AWS Managed Service Program Partner designation and focuses on a core set of managed service capabilities that all AWS Managed Service Providers should possess, along with specific technical and business capabilities to further showcase their unique value to customers and to AWS field teams.

Why Has the Checklist Been Updated? 

The most recent updates made to the Checklist are a direct result of our goal to help customers identify MSP Partners whose practices embody the characteristics of a well-skilled next-generation MSP. We spoke about the importance of the next-generation MSP at an NYC Pop-up Loft event in December, and you can read more about that event here. Next-generation MSPs are first and foremost AWS experts. These AWS Partners embrace and deeply understand the importance of DevOps in both internal operations and external engagements, have dynamically responded to the power of automation in billing/pricing models for customers, and simply look at the world a little differently. According to our MSP team, “The focus on service intelligence and continuous compliance becomes one of the main differentiators for next-gen MSPs, as it’s been proven that simply applying traditional approaches to new paradigms does not work.”

So, What’s New in Version 3.0? 

The first AWS Validation Checklist (version 1.0) was released in 2014, and the team has made a number of version changes in the past year. In the newest checklist, Version 3.0, the following changes have been made:

1. Added Business Health Section and Controls (Section 1)
2. Added Billing and Cost Management Section and Controls (Section 5)
3. Added new standards specific to Next-Generation MSP differentiation (Sections 3, 7, and 9)
4. Removed “process and documentation” as allowable evidence in some sections; these are now only met with technology demonstrations
5. Removed optional Business and Technical Capability Identifiers; we encourage MSP Partners to achieve AWS Competencies to differentiate their business
6. Moved all White Label Audit Requirements and Policies to Appendix B

How Does this Impact Existing AWS MSPs?

New AWS MSP Partners and those in the program going through re-audit will be required to use Version 3.0 for any audit after March 1st, 2016.

Where Can I Download the AWS MSP Validation Checklist? 

Do download the Validation Checklist, log in to the APN Portal and click here. Care to learn more about getting started as an AWS MSP? Download the AWS MSP Getting Started Guide here.

Stay tuned to the APN Blog for news and updates on the AWS MSP Program throughout 2016.

I’m excited to share with you our latest AWS Partner Success stories, featuring two APN Partners who’ve been very successful in growing their businesses on AWS, and have differentiated themselves on AWS by earning a number of AWS Competencies. The AWS Competency Program is designed to highlight APN Partners who’ve demonstrated technical proficiency and proven customer success in specialized solution areas. We set a high bar for APN Partners to achieve an AWS Competency, and the APN Partners I’m highlighting today, Logicworks and Looker, have each earned not one, not two, but three AWS Competencies.

Logicworks

AWS Premier Consulting Partner, AWS Managed Service Provider, AWS DevOps, Healthcare, and Marketing & Commerce Competency Holder 

Logicworks is a cloud automation and managed service provider with 22 years of experience transforming enterprise IT. As a Premier APN Consulting Partner, Logicworks specializes in building, managing, and optimizing complex and secure AWS environments for global enterprises. Over the course of two decades, Logicworks developed significant operational expertise in enterprise hosting and infrastructure strategy. Logicworks engineers are constantly exploring new technologies, and its engineers saw the enormous potential of the AWS platform. Logicworks rapidly developed expertise on the platform and institutionalized it into its service portfolio to meet the growing demand for the platform among current customers and prospects. “As systems management has evolved, infrastructure-as-code requires a completely new managed service delivery model,” says Jason Deck, vice president of strategic development, Logicworks. “Automation, scalability, and compliance are table stakes for enterprise-grade cloud delivery.”

As Logicworks considered how to best meet enterprise customer demands while changing its delivery model, it decided the cloud offered the most potential, and made the decision to work with AWS. Logicworks helps enterprise clients understand the power of infrastructure-as-code and harness the full breadth of AWS services to meet their unique application requirements. Through its relationship with AWS, Logicworks has transformed the way it delivers value to clients. “Rather than deploying and managing dedicated infrastructure, our AWS engineers script and automate infrastructure purely with software,” says Deck. “That’s a 180-degree change from what this industry has experienced in the past 20 years, and it’s very exciting for our company and our customers.” Through this new approach, Logicworks is better able to meet customer demands for agility. “With a cloud-based model, application deployment and maintenance are software-driven for our customers, so they are more modular, flexible, and transparent,” says Deck. “They can automate application deployment in a way that allows their infrastructure to be responsive to the application, even when the application changes.”

Want to learn more? Read the full Logicworks case study.

Looker

AWS All-in Technology Partner, AWS Big Data, Marketing & Commerce, and Big Data Competency Holder 

Looker, a business intelligence and analytics platform, is an all-in Technology Partner on AWS. Looker has worked closely with the APN, and has seen substantial business growth since becoming an APN Partner. For example, Looker has experienced 5x revenue growth in the past year. A highlight for the Looker team has been the AWS Competency Program. “Becoming an AWS Competency Partner has really benefited Looker’s business,” Keenan Rice, VP of alliances at Looker, explains. “We’re able to communicate how we leverage the different AWS services that are tailored specifically for our customers’ and prospects’ needs.”

Check out all of our AWS Partner Success stories here.

APN Partners, we hope that your new year has started off well! We have a lot of exciting updates to come from the APN in 2016, and we’re happy to kick off the new year with the release of our 2016 APN Program Guide.

The APN Program Guide is a comprehensive document for you to leverage as you get to know the APN. The guide includes:

• An introduction to the APN and APN objectives
• Information on the APN tiers
• Best practices for using the APN Portal
• AWS training and enablement for Partners
• 2016 APN benefits and requirements
• A deep overview of our core AWS Partner Programs, including: the AWS Competency Program, the AWS Managed Service Provider Program, the AWS Channel Reseller Program, and the AWS SaaS Partner Program
• Partner marketing and go-to-market (GTM) resources
• Additional resources for you to leverage throughout your journey as an APN Partner

You can download the new program guide by logging into the APN Portal and clicking here.

We’re constantly launching new updates across the APN in areas such as training, the APN Portal, and our partner programs, and we’ll be updating the Program Guide quarterly to ensure you have the most up-to-date information available to download. As always, we’ll also be announcing any APN launches and updates on the APN Blog – so stay tuned!

Erik Farr is a Partner Solutions Architect (SA) with the AWS Partner Network (APN). 

My Amazon Web Services (AWS) journey started in late 2012, when I opened a cloud consulting practice at a firm that was an AWS Partner Network (APN) Premier Partner. As an APN Partner, I found AWS training courses and certifications invaluable, augmenting them with additional AWS resources and tools to ensure that my team was properly prepared.

Now that I work at AWS as a Solutions Architect, APN Partners often ask me how—and when—to start training their staff. AWS has a wealth of great resources. Business and Technical Partner Learning Plans, for example, are designed to help you and your team ramp up on the AWS platform, deepen your knowledge and skills, and better serve your customers in your first weeks and months.

What follows is my own unique learning plan, designed to cater to the full lifecycle of AWS enablement from entry level to global expert. Remember, this is just one way to grow. Think of this plan as a template to augment your own personalized approach. While I focus mostly on AWS skills, it’s important to supplement these with traditional IT skills like Linux/Windows OS management, networking, scripting, and development. This plan also focuses on stages, not titles (although you could map it to roles), and doesn’t include familiar “time in stage” because everyone starts at a different place and grows at a different pace.

The early stage is meant to provide a baseline level of knowledge of AWS; all people on your team should have this foundation to ensure future success. The middle stage is relevant for the bulk of your workforce. It focuses on gaining certifications and real world experience, expanding knowledge of AWS into fringe cases, and beginning a professional relationship with AWS Solution Architects, Partner Development Managers, and/or Account Managers your company is already working with. The advanced stage is the peak tier and where your top employees should strive to be. Completing activities outlined in the advanced stage allows real differentiation for both your company and for the individual.

Early Stage

This stage of the journey is for people with little or no exposure to the AWS cloud.  Typically these are people new to your organization or team (i.e. fresh from school or transfers from a non-cloud team), and ready to begin the AWS enablement process.  Having your entire staff complete this stage ensures teams will have a solid understanding of the AWS cloud and its value proposition.

Recommended Activities to Complete

In the table below, I’ll link to a number of webpages to direct you to introductory information on training courses and resources. Be sure to register for all training activities through the APN Portal training tab. APN Partners can take online accreditation courses at no cost and receive a 20% discount on AWS-delivered public classes registered through the APN Portal.

Middle Stage

The middle stage of the journey focuses on certifications and specialization.  The people in this stage aren’t new to cloud, and typically already have a strong understanding of AWS, either because they completed the Early Stage training or have previous cloud experience.  After an individual has completed this stage, they should feel highly capable of using AWS services and be an anchor resource for a new or complex cloud project.

Recommended Activities to Complete

In the table below, I’ll link to a number of webpages to direct you to introductory information on training courses and resources. Be sure to register for all training activities through the APN Portal training tab. APN Partners can take online accreditation courses at no cost and receive a 20% discount on AWS-delivered public classes registered through the APN Portal.

Advanced Stage

The advanced stage of the journey moves past associate certifications and focuses on thought leadership and specialization at local, regional, and global levels. These people are already considered subject matter experts on AWS and typically have vast amounts of real world AWS experience over many years. The people in this stage are very technically proficient on the AWS platform and have effectively devoted their career to working with the AWS cloud. They will continually learn new services as they come out, and develop solutions using AWS cloud native architectures.

Recommended Activities to Complete

In the table below, I’ll link to a number of webpages to direct you to introductory information on training courses and resources. Be sure to register for all training activities through the APN Portal training tab. APN Partners can take online accreditation courses at no cost and receive a 20% discount on AWS-delivered public classes registered through the APN Portal.

In summary, this guide is meant to assist you when developing a training and growth path for your employees who are AWS-focused.  In following these recommendations, I’m confident that you can build a solid foundation for your team that is AWS-focused, whether your company has tens or thousands of people delivering AWS projects.

Best of luck, and feel free to contact me for additional information or clarifications: erikfarr@amazon.com

We launched the APN Blog in late November 2014, and I’ve loved developing and growing this blog as an outlet of news and information about the APN. It’s also been quite a treat to get to work with teams across AWS and with a number of APN Partners around the globe to highlight great APN Partner stories and solutions on AWS. We’ve only just begun, and I can’t wait to share more with you throughout 2016.

As we wrap up the year, I want to share with you some of our most popular posts from 2015. In case you missed ’em, here’s a recap of 10 of our most popular posts. Happy reading! See you in 2016.

• Getting Started with Ansible and Dynamic Amazon EC2 Inventory Management
• Active Directory Single Sign-On (SSO) on AWS with Bitium
• Leveraging CircleCI and AWS CodeDeploy for Continuous Integration Workflows
• Introducing the Amazon RDS Migration Tool
• Announcing Mesosphere DCOS on AWS
• Deploy High Availability Architectures with the Help of APN Consulting Partners
• Cloud Deduplication, On-Demand: StorReduce, an APN Technology Partner
• Announcing Our Inaugural AWS Managed Service Provider Program Partners
• Getting the Most out of the Amazon S3 CLI 
• Performance Testing in Continuous Delivery Using AWS CodePipeline and BlazeMeter

As we head into the holidays and the New Year, I’m excited to share some holiday reading with you. We’ve recently published three new AWS Partner case studies that tell the stories of APN Consulting Partner Vision33, and APN Technology Partners ANSYS and Fusionex. Whether it be in engineering simulation, SAP Business One, or big data solutions, these APN Partners are constantly innovating on AWS to drive value for end customers. Read on to learn more…

ANSYS

ANSYS is a global leader in computer-aided simulation software. Based near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the company’s software applications help engineers solve their most complex design challenges through engineering simulations in areas such as fluid dynamics, electromagnetics, and structural mechanics. Many modern products, from smartphones to airplanes, are designed using ANSYS software solutions. For the large and small organizations that use ANSYS software, computing capacity and performance are constant challenges. To meet these specific customer needs, ANSYS looked to the cloud. “We saw cloud computing as an enabler for our customers because we thought it could give them the scalability and global delivery they were looking for from us,” says Wim Slagter, director, HPC & cloud marketing at ANSYS. “We also thought the cloud could help many of our enterprise customers centralize their simulation assets.”

After it had begun its relationship with AWS, ANSYS created ANSYS® Enterprise Cloud™, a new engineering simulation platform in the cloud that is deployed as a turnkey solution within customers’ dedicated corporate accounts. Because it can deliver its simulation workloads to customers via the AWS cloud, ANSYS can now help its customers achieve the scalability they need to take on the most demanding simulations.

Read the full ANSYS case study here.

Fusionex

Fusionex is a global, multinational IT Group, specializing in analytics, business intelligence and big data. Fusionex focuses on helping its clients manage, understand, and derive useful insights and value from data. The firm has been an APN Partner since 2012. With offices in Asia, Europe, and the Americas, Fusionex possesses a global customer base and needs to be able to scale to meet demand and reach customers effectively, regardless of a customer’s location. Prior to moving to the cloud, the company’s systems, solutions, and data processing was by and large hosted on premise which not only prohibited the ability to scale quickly as the company grew, but also limited its expansion plans due to cost deterrence. A number of factors contributed to Fusionex’s decision to use AWS and become an APN Partner, including the inherent scalability of the AWS platform, the global footprint of AWS, and the business and technical support available through AWS.

As the company’s use of AWS became more integral to the services and solutions it offers to customers, Fusionex decided to become an APN Partner. “We started our relationship with AWS as a customer ourselves, and decided to become an APN Partner as we’ve observed that our relationship with AWS will only continue to deepen,” says Tan. Since moving to AWS, Fusionex’s speed to market has increased substantially, allowing the company to increase the rate at which it expands its offerings to customers. “In using AWS and working as an APN Partner, we’ve been able to expand our offerings and our speed to market has dramatically increased,” explains Tan. “We’ve been able to increase our speed to market by at least eight times using AWS, thus edging many a competitor by sheer speed in terms of our offering.”

Want to learn more? Click here.

Vision33

Vision33, Inc. is a leading global consulting company and value-added reseller (VAR) for SAP Business One, and the recipient of the B1 Award from SAP in North America. Vision33 focuses on implementing SAP Business One for growing businesses and subsidiaries of large enterprises. Throughout North America and abroad, as the number one global VAR for the SAP Business One application, Vision33 has helped hundreds of customers gain real insight into their business processes. Vision33 is an AWS Partner Network (APN) Consulting Partner, an AWS SAP Competency holder, and has been a member of the APN since 2011.

As the company began to experience demand for cloud-based solutions from its customer base, the team saw the opportunity afforded through the cloud to provide customers with rapid provisioning capabilities around the globe and high availability. The Vision33 team focused on building a relationship with AWS for many reasons. “In AWS, we saw the opportunity to work with an SAP Certified company with a strong brand, a robust global footprint, and Enterprise-level solutions,” says Rooney. “SAP products are certified for production deployment on AWS, and it meant we could have the confidence to know that our customers can access SAP Business One from anywhere, at any time, with maximum uptime. This enables us to offer greater value to our customers.” Using the AWS platform has opened up new business opportunities for Vision33 through the ability to offer customers SAP Business One on HANA. “By building on AWS, we now offer customers SAP Business One on HANA, which runs on a Linux platform,” explains Romero. “With this offering, our customers with SAP Business One on HANA no longer need to worry about how to manage their on-premise Linux servers. We can also automate SAP Business One on HANA builds, compared to the traditional methods of sourcing servers from vendors.”

Learn more about Vision33’s journey here.

Read all of our APN Partner case studies and watch our Partner Success Story videos here.