Tiers of Partnership

Select Tier

The lowest tier of organizational partners, but do consist of trained and certified members with some customer experience. 

Advanced Tier

Organizational partners with a well-rounded team of certified and trained members with proven customer experience.

Premier Tier

Most experienced with AWS and are recognized as leaders within their geographical and market sectors.  These groups have deep expertise with AWS and have displayed great success with customers at scale.

Benefits of Being an AWS Partner

There are a variety of benefits on offer from AWS depending on how long the organization is partnered with Amazon.  Before getting started, do remember that some services may not be available in all geographies, are made available on a yearly basis, and are available only in some tiers.

Resources

These are made available upon registration with the Partner Program.  These include:

• • AWS Partner Central: resources and information on everything the program has
  • Online training and further accreditation
  • AWS solutions archives and prefabricated solutions
  • AWS Educated for learning how to work with the AWS cloud
  • Financial sponsorship
  • Whitepapers on AWS
  • AWS architecture diagrams and drawing tools
  • Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Factory Program for getting assistance for application building whether it be migrating to the Cloud or optimizing SaaS solutions
  • APN Navigate Tracks is a subscription service that provides guidance to build, market, and sell with AWS
  • AWS Blueprint is a collection of portfolios of tested and validated AWS services and third-party applications so that AWS Distributors and AWS Solution Providers can deploy, manage, and monitor solutions for their small and medium business (SMB) customers in the AWS Cloud
  • Well-Architected Tools is a monitoring tool designed to give reports on the current performance of an application and its workloads while providing best practices and advice
  • TechShift Program is designed to teach users as well as help them build out their project

Marketing

Some of these are available to Select members but are made more readily available to Advanced members and above.  Advanced and above get:

• • APN Customer Engagement Program is the main outlet for APN users to share ideas and strategies
  • Authority to Operate (ATO) on AWS Program for partners on AWS who need help with compliance authorization 
  • AWS Competency Program sifts through partners and promotes partners with verified expertise and good customer track records
  • Well-Architected Partner Program helps to establish good architectural habits, reduce risk, and react faster to changes that affect design.

All tier members have access to:

• • AWS Distribution Program to aid with reselling AWS services and products
  • AWS ISV Workload Migration Program is designed to help partners who provide SaaS offerings
  • AWS Public Sector Partner Program helps partners who provide services to governments, education, and non-profit organizations
  • AWS Service Delivery Program aims to help partners who have expertise in delivering specific services to customers, such as helping a customer run serverless code via Lambda
  • And a Partner Tier Badge for everyone to see

Tools at Your Fingertips

The benefits provided yearly depend on the Partner’s continued eligibility and may not be available in some geographic areas and markets.  Additionally, some benefits may have additional requirements and caveats to them.  All details are displayed in full under the AWS Partner Central.

• • Marketing Development Funds Program (MDFP) - comes with cash reimbursement and AWS promotional credits.  This is not extended to the Select Tier.
  • Partner Opportunities Acceleration (POA) for POC and migrations - comes with cash reimbursement and AWS promotional credits.
  • AWS Promotional Credits for solution development

Requirements

There are additional hoops for organizations to jump through first before acquiring even the lowest tier of partnership with AWS.

Access Point Name Fee

Regardless of if the organization is at the lowest or highest tier, all partners are required to put forward $2,500 per year to maintain membership.

Knowledge Requirements

This part is a bit tricky.  Organizations will need to have their members certified and vetted through AWS’ certification system.  For more details, check out our article here.

Experience Requirements

Customer Success Requirements

Becoming an AWS Partner

Sign Onto the AWS Partner Network

The first step is to get that foot in the door.  Upon signup, organizations will need to fully outline their company and what their long-term goals are.  More details here.

Enroll in a Services Path

After signup, take a moment to review the requirements for earning Select Tier status.  This will require getting staff acquainted with Amazon services and signing up a crew to take certification courses and exams.

Define your Business

With the tools and benefits labeled above, it is critical those services are leveraged to their greatest capacity to stand out and establish a degree of public trust through partner tiers and earned validations.

Want to Know More on AWS?

As of writing, we at AllCode just acquired AWS Selected Tier and are well on our way to acquiring AWS Advanced Tier.  Want a better understanding of what’s expected of the partnership process?  We can provide help with advice and more on AWS.  Feel free to drop us a line.