AWS Competency Checklist

Looking to leverage AWS Competency ? Discover essential steps and maximize your AWS partnership benefits.

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What is AWS Competency?

As part of Epsagon’s AWS Partner Network (APN) journey, I came across a few interesting programs that are available for AWS partners and provide a significant differentiation. This post is part of a series of posts that are focused on our APN journey. In this series, I share my experience concerning the partnership with AWS and provide insights around where did I start, the potential value of this partnership and how long does it take. I also share some practical tips that I learned along the way.

See here insights regarding — what is the value of being an AWS Partner and how to become a partner.

So now, after you understand why and how to become an AWS Partner, let’s talk about differentiation.

I’m an AWS Partner (!) — now what?

There are many differentiation programs that you could apply for once obtaining the Partner status. Epsagon’s, for instance, is participating in a few, such as Competency, Marketplace and Solution space. In this blog post, I will focus on Competency, a program which I find very significant.

According to AWS, the AWS competency is:

“designed to highlight APN Partners who have demonstrated technical proficiency and proven customer success in specialized solution areas. Attaining an AWS Competency allows partners to differentiate themselves to customers by showcasing expertise in a specific solution area”.

There are several competencies in different categories. The full list can be found here.

Which Competency Category is Relevant to You?

This really depends on your product. There are a few competencies that can be relevant for one product, so it is better to choose the one with the higher chances of being accepted (moving forward, you could apply for more competencies). As Epsagon’s solution provides monitoring and observability platform for Serverless applications, I chose to apply for DevOps Competency, which includes a sub-category for “Monitoring, logging, and testing” solutions.

When to Apply to AWS Competency Program and How?

The sooner, the better! As soon as a you obtain your Partner status (the process is detailed here), it is entitled to apply to the Competency Program. This is exactly what we did at Epsagon. The application shall be submitted through the APN Portal.

AWS Competency Requirements

To apply for the Competency program, you have to include the following details in your application:

Customer References

Four AWS customer references are required for the DevOps competency. Such references have to be related to DevOps projects. Please note that two of these references must be public. For a reference to be “public,” it should be published as a blog post for instance.

For each reference, we were required to provide the following information.

• Name of the customer
• Problem statement/definition
• What you proposed
• How AWS services were used as part of the solution
• Third party applications or solutions used
• Start and end dates of the project (Case studies must be for projects started within the past 18 months, and must be for projects that are in production, rather than in pilot or proof of concept stage
• Outcome(s)/results
• Describe TCO ׁ(total cost of ownership) analysis Performed

AWS Technical Validation

Each partner must undergo an AWS Technical Validation in order to achieve an AWS Competency. This is the most challenging part. The Technical Validation includes assessments of the Partner Solution. Essentially, the Technical Validation confirms the Partner’s capabilities in developing and delivering customer solutions using AWS Services specific to a solution area, in accordance with the AWS best-practices described in the AWS Well-Architected Framework. This technical validation includes a few hours call with an AWS Solution Architect.

Each Technical Validation is comprised of two elements:

• Documentation Review: we had to present technical documentation detailing Epsagon’s
• Solution: the documentation is expected to consist of both public information (like “how to” guide) and non-public information, such as architecture diagrams, design documents, and security assessments.

Note: Each competency and category is intended to highlight a specific solution that addresses a customer problem. As such, the checklist may include competency specific requirements highlighting specific methodologies and capabilities the solution must provide to the customer.

Key Benefits of AWS Competency Designation:

• Eligibility to be featured on the Solution Space
• Entitlement to receive AWS lead and opportunity referrals through the ACE (Customer Engagements Program) platform. *subject to submitting at lease ten approved opportunities through the APN portal.
• Featured on AWS Competency page
• Priorities Marketing Activities (such as IPC, DMS)
• AWS Sales enablement
• Preferred Partner recommendations
• Direct and prioritized access to AWS Partner Network reference team (for blog posts, case studies, etc.)
• Additional 5K a year in MDFs.
• Eligibility for AWS Partner roundtable invitations

AWS Go-to-Market Activities you Can Do as an AWS Competency Partner

Here are examples to just some of the benefits we saw at Epsagon, from achieving the competency:

• Joint events with AWS.
• Joint webinars with AWS.
• Blog post on the APN blog.
• Participating in roundtables.
• Referral to customers.
• Referral to Consulting Partners.

To conclude, AWS Competency provides various opportunities that can help companies with their GTM strategy, product credibility, and customer awareness. For us at Epsagon, the competency was and still is extremely valuable, as it introduces us to great programs and activities that create a sustainable competitive advantage.

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