AWS management tools: Partners gain visibility with buyers

Consulting partners focusing on cloud management tools can increase their visibility with potential customers through AWS' Service Delivery Program; other news from the week.

Cloud consultants experienced in AWS management tools have new avenues to promote their skills. Amazon Web Services recently added four tools to its AWS Service Delivery Program, which the cloud provider unveiled in November 2016.

The program aims to help customers identify AWS Partner Network companies with expertise in specific skill or service areas. The AWS management tools added to the program are AWS CloudFormation, Amazon EC2 Systems Manager, AWS Config and AWS CloudTrail. According to an AWS blog post, 11 companies have been named Management Tools Service Delivery launch partners.

Among those companies is 2nd Watch, a managed public cloud provider based in Seattle. The company has obtained AWS Service Delivery launch partner status for AWS CloudFormation, AWS CloudTrail and AWS Config.

"Customers looking to leverage and understand how to use AWS Config, CloudTrail or CloudFormation will be able to find us [via the AWS partner portal] and understand we have more than just the basic knowledge of these products and how to use them," said Jeff Aden, executive vice president of strategic business development and marketing at 2nd Watch.

Customers looking to leverage and understand how to use AWS Config, CloudTrail or CloudFormation will be able to find us.
Jeff Adenexecutive vice president of strategic business development and marketing, 2nd Watch

Aden said those three tools are commonly implemented across 2nd Watch's customer base.

Companies that become an AWS management tools delivery partner can promote their offerings through channels such as the AWS Service Delivery website, the Partner Solutions Finder and the services partner page, according to AWS.

Other launch partners for the AWS management tools delivery designation include Cloudnexa, Cloudreach, Cloudticity, Cognizant, Datapipe, Flux7, Foghorn Consulting, Logicworks, REAN Cloud and Stelligent.

NAYA Tech, NuoDB in reseller pact

NAYA Tech, a database consulting and managed IT services company based in Sunnyvale, Calif., has entered a reseller relationship with NuoDB, a company that provides an elastic SQL database for hybrid cloud applications.

Yair Rozilio, CEO and founder of NAYA Tech, suggested NuoDB's technology will have applicability across multiple industries, noting that NAYA Tech has an opportunity to offer its services to both enterprise customers and startups. Specifically, the company plans to focus on industries with a pressing need for an elastic, cloud-centric transactional database.

"We'll focus first on independent software [vendors] offering SaaS solutions that require immense scale, and also expand into other areas such as the financial and communications sectors," Rozilio said.

Rozilio said NuoDB suits two types of customers for which NAYA Tech can provide services. For customers with existing applications that need greater scale, elasticity or lower cost than their current databases, NAYA Tech offers a migration-as-a-service turnkey solution. In this model, the company takes a customer's existing database architecture and applications and migrates them to NuoDB. For customers looking for the appropriate database technology to power next-generation data architectures, NAYA Tech offers design and implementation services, Rozilio explained.

NAYA Tech plans to train dozens of its core database technology consultants on NuoDB, Rozilio said. He said those consultants include solutions architects, database administrators and developers experienced with relational and NoSQL database technologies.

Stephen Fahey, senior vice president of sales at NuoDB, based in Cambridge, Mass., said the company has worked with a number of international resellers and consultants, but noted its relationship with NAYA Tech represents its first reseller agreement based in the U.S. 

BackupAssist rolls out ransomware protection

BackupAssist, a Windows server backup and recovery vendor, introduced CryptoSafeGuard, a new ransomware protection product for the SMB market. The company sells its products through resellers and managed service provider partners.

CryptoSafeGuard, which combines with the vendor's backup software, aims to protect customers from ransomware infections, complementing existing security products such as firewalls "by providing an extra layer of protection to the backup," said Linus Chang, CEO of BackupAssist.

"We are not trying to replace existing [security] solutions. We are actually providing an extra safety net," he said.

"Recently, [ransomware] has evolved into a threat for all businesses," and the threat is growing exponentially every year, said Troy Vertigan, BackupAssist's vice president of sales and marketing. "Businesses have a higher chance ... of being taken down by ransomware more than the risk of a flood or a fire," he noted.

Customers of the company's BackupCare subscription service will have access to the CryptoSafeGuard through version 10.1 of BackupAssist's software.

Hurricane relief for partners

ConnectWise, a company that offers remote monitoring and management, professional services automation and other products for service providers, is raising funds to assist partners affected by Hurricane Harvey. In a blog post, ConnectWise CEO Arnie Bellini said the company aims to "help our partners survive as entrepreneurs and reestablish their successful businesses." The company plans to raise $750,000 and will match donations to ConnectWise.com/HelpNow.

Other news

  • Datatec Ltd., the parent company of Westcon-Comstor, has closed the sale of the distributor's North America and Latin America business to Synnex Corp. The deal also includes the sale of a minority share in Westcon-Comstor's EMEA and Asia-Pacific business to Synnex. Datatec's plan to sell the Westcon-Comstor assets was disclosed in June 2017.
  • In other acquisition news, VRP Consulting, a Salesforce consulting firm and digital transformation services provider based in San Francisco, has purchased CodeSWAT, a Salesforce consultancy in Santa Clara, Calif.
  • SolarWinds MSP, an IT service management technology provider, revealed it has purchased SpamExperts, an email security company. SpamExperts currently offers services for email archiving, as well as spam and virus filtering. SolarWinds MSP said the acquisition will expand its SolarWinds MSP Mail technology.
  • Data protection company StorageCraft launched a $100,000 Recovery Guarantee for qualified partners. The guarantee covers the recovery of virtual or physical machines, either on premises or in the cloud, according to StorageCraft.
  • The NFL's Jacksonville Jaguars have tapped TierPoint LLC to provide colocation and other managed data center services. TierPoint in 2015 acquired its Jacksonville, Fla., data center and has since completed an infrastructure and security upgrade, according to the company. Shifting from AFC South to AFC North territory, TierPoint also announced it will build a second data center in Baltimore. The planned 35,000 sq. ft. facility will see an initial investment of more than $10 million.

Market Share is a news roundup published every Friday.

Next Steps

Learn more about AWS tools for enterprise cloud management

Read about AWS Config and the compliance management use case

Gain insight into the NuoDB database and its background

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