How to Get Started with AWS ISV Partners

Looking for an easier way to integrate and use partner solutions with AWS? AWS ISV Partners might be your answer. An AWS ISV partner provides specialized business applications that can help customers get the most out of their cloud experience, boost cloud ROI, and realize faster digital transformation, among other benefits.

In this article, we’ll discuss how to find, onboard, integrate and use these partner solutions with AWS. We will also look at some of the benefits they offer and what customers should consider when choosing a partner solution.

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What is an ISV partner?

ISV stands for independent software vendor—meaning, a company that develops and sells software to customers. ISV partners can help you set up, integrate, and use software solutions with many different operating systems, devices, software tools, and cloud platforms.

For Amazon Web Services (AWS), software vendors can join the AWS ISV Accelerate program to sell their AWS-compatible solutions and take advantage of co-sell opportunities with AWS partners. Vendors accepted into the AWS ISV Partner Path must pass a technical review and meet certain criteria for business performance and quality standards. This ensures that customers are getting high-quality and reliable solutions that are optimized to run on AWS cloud.

Benefits of using ISV integrations

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Using ISV integrations with your AWS environment has many benefits, but here are a few of the biggest ones:

• Cost savings. ISV solutions tend to be more cost-effective than building your software from scratch.
• Performance optimization. ISVs can help you optimize the performance of your AWS environment by providing tailored solutions designed for optimal performance.
• Security and reliability. Working with an ISV partner increases security and reliability, as they have experience in dealing with large amounts of data and understanding best practices when it comes to protecting sensitive information.
• Support and expertise. You can benefit from a partner’s specialized support and expertise in areas such as analytics, monitoring, security, and more—allowing you to quickly respond to any issues that may arise.

You might see other outcomes depending on the nature of your business and use case.

> AWS Cost Optimization: Getting the Most From Your Cloud Spend

For example, a fintech company might use Snowflake Financial Services Data Cloud on AWS to maintain KYC and AML compliance while also combating fraud. If you’re an enterprise organization taking advantage of edge locations, you might use Splunk on AWS to combine log data for faster and easier monitoring and alerting.

Considerations when onboarding an ISV

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According to the 2021 Global Tech Outlook report from Red Hat, “integration issues” is the number-one barrier organizations face in a successful digital transformation. To avoid this problem, consider how the following factors might impact your ISV integrations and plan accordingly.

• Cloud migrations. These can present a challenge for ISV onboarding because they require moving applications from on-premises servers to the public cloud or from one cloud provider to another while making sure they still work. Some applications and integrations may not work well (or at all) in a cloud environment without some code optimization or refactoring.
• Complexity. Integrating a third-party solution into an existing AWS environment can be difficult, as it often requires configuring multiple services and permissions correctly for everything to work together properly.
• Visibility. Companies need to be aware of how a particular ISV’s solutions integrate with other services and what impact it could have on performance, security, or cost before committing any resources.

How to bridge skills gaps for successful integration

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You might run into a situation where your team is missing some of the skills, knowledge, and experience needed to pull off a successful ISV integration. In this case, staff and resource augmentation is a good option.

The nature and duration of any engagement will depend on your specific situation. Consider these scenarios:

• You might hire a cloud migration consultant on a project basis to help with migrating your workloads without breaking your integrations. Depending on the size and complexity of your migration, you may also need to engage a solutions architect or cloud developer to help with any code optimization or API configuration.
• Cloud integration specialists, API developers, and solutions architects can be hired on an hourly or contract basis to integrate an ISV solution into your existing AWS environment. Integration often requires configuring multiple services and permissions correctly for everything to work together properly, so you’ll want to look for candidates with solid AWS experience, preferably with the specific AWS services you’ll be using.
• To help maintain performance and security, consider hiring an identity and access management (IAM) or security specialist on an hourly or as-needed basis.
• Finally, a cost optimization consultant makes recommendations on keeping costs low—an important piece to keep in mind, especially for ISV integrations with consumption-based pricing.

For finding the right candidates, it’s a good idea to partner with a tech recruiting agency that can both advise on which roles to hire and source qualified candidates for you to review. A platform like Nerdly is a great option for short term and ad hoc talent needs, while traditional tech recruiting services are better suited for direct hire and long term engagements.

Where to find AWS ISV integrations

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Businesses can purchase ISV integrations for their AWS environments through the AWS Marketplace. The Marketplace is an online store that offers a wide selection of software solutions from over 3,500 independent software vendors (ISVs) that have been verified by AWS.

In addition to the Marketplace, companies can also research and purchase ISV solutions through third-party vendors or directly from the ISVs themselves. This allows businesses to get a more comprehensive view of what options are available and make an informed decision about which solution is best for them.

Examples of ISV integrations

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There are many different types of ISVs available, and each one offers unique solutions that can help you get the most out of your cloud services. Here are some examples of ISV solutions and how they can help you achieve your goals.

Analytics solutions on AWS

Some analytics providers offer data platforms for securely storing, retrieving, and analyzing large amounts of data. These are an ideal choice for companies looking to increase their analytics capabilities without having to manage complex infrastructure. Many analytics ISVs offer the flexibility to access and analyze data quickly and securely in both on-premises and cloud environments.

Monitoring and security on AWS

You’ll also find ISV integrations that provide monitoring, security, and analytics solutions to help you gain visibility into your infrastructure performance. These platforms can monitor systems such as networks, servers, applications, cloud services, and more in real time. Some solutions can aggregate logs from various sources and detect anomalies in system behavior using machine learning algorithms.

Database solutions on AWS

In addition to AWS database services, you can choose from several ISV database solutions designed for scalability, high availability, and ease of use. Some of these solutions offer a fully-managed version of their database software along with associated tools for managing database clusters. This allows customers to reduce costs while increasing performance and reliability.

Infrastructure solutions on AWS

Finally, some ISVs offer IT infrastructure solutions. These integrations work by collecting log data from devices such as servers, networks, applications, cloud services, and other sources of machine-generated data. Some of them can detect anomalies in system behavior across multiple sources to quickly identify potential problems or opportunities for improvement before they become real issues.

Ready to take advantage of all that ISV integrations have to offer?

At NerdRabbit, we understand the complexity of ISV integrations and how difficult it can be to find the right partner. We make it our mission to match organizations with tech talent who have expertise in AWS integrations so they can get their projects up and running quickly and efficiently. Our team of experts is available to help you every step of the way, from finding an appropriate partner that fits your budget constraints to seamlessly onboarding them into your environment.

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