The Power of Partnerships: Dr. Ruba Borno’s 2024 AWS re:Invent Partner Keynote

The cloud has revolutionized how businesses operate, and partnerships are essential to fully realize its potential. At AWS re:Invent 2024, Dr. Ruba Borno, AWS VP of Global Specialists & Partners, delivered an insightful keynote, using the analogy of a symphony to emphasize the power of seamless collaboration between AWS and its partners. She highlighted new AWS partner competencies, advancements in the AWS Marketplace, and the pivotal role partners play in driving migration and modernization efforts.

AWS partners play a crucial role in crafting solutions that address customers' unique needs, much like the instruments in a symphony playing in harmony. The AWS Marketplace amplifies the reach of these tailored solutions, making them easily discoverable by customers. Through continuous collaboration, AWS and its partners maintain a fast pace of innovation to meet evolving demands. AWS acts as the conductor, coordinating with partners to deliver integrated solutions that complement AWS services and one another. Together, AWS and its partner network can solve a broader range of customer challenges with greater depth and flexibility than any single provider could offer. This harmonious collaboration between AWS and its partners creates impactful, customized solutions for customers.

New partner competencies drive success in emerging technologies

Borno introduced several new partner competencies and specializations designed to help customers identify partners with expertise in key emerging technologies. Several of the key competencies introduced focused on high-demand areas such as AI security, digital sovereignty and security data management. These new competencies are a direct response to the increasing complexity of technology landscapes. Here’s a short list:

• AWS AI Security Specialization: This certification within the AWS Security Competency identifies partners with proven skills in securing AI environments and defending AI workloads
• AWS Digital Sovereignty Competency: Validates partners who can meet sovereignty and compliance requirements, particularly for public sector and regulated industries, focusing on data residency, access control, and resilience
• Amazon Security Lake Service Ready Competency: Recognizes partners who have integrated their solutions with Amazon Security Lake, helping customers streamline security data management
• AWS Security Incident Response Service Specialty: Equips partners to provide comprehensive incident response services, enabling effective security incident management and mitigation

These competencies demonstrate AWS’s commitment to connecting customers with validated experts in cutting-edge fields such as AI security, digital sovereignty, and security analytics. By building a robust partner ecosystem in emerging technologies, AWS is helping accelerate both cloud migration and the modernization of legacy applications.

New AWS Marketplace features streamline software purchasing

Borno also announced that Buy with AWS, a new feature for the AWS Marketplace, is now in general availability. This capability allows partners to embed AWS Marketplace checkout functionality directly on their websites and apps. With a single click, customers can access the AWS Marketplace, search for software and complete purchases — all while using their existing AWS account for billing and user management. Partners also gain access to a dedicated dashboard to track engagement metrics such as site visits, browsing time and transactions initiated.

We learned that AWS Marketplace now supports local currencies for transactions, benefiting software sellers worldwide. Previously, all AWS Marketplace payments were made in U.S. dollars, which often led to unpredictable foreign exchange costs for international vendors. Now, sellers can receive payments in Euros, Yen, Pounds, and Australian dollars, in addition to U.S. dollars. This change eliminates foreign exchange risks and allows for direct deposits into local bank accounts. By expanding the accepted currencies, AWS Marketplace reduces friction and uncertainty around payments for both overseas partners and U.S.-based partners who transact internationally. Enabling local currency transactions makes it easier for more partners worldwide to do business on AWS Marketplace while improving the experience for customers.

The importance of modernization alongside migration

Borno emphasized that migration alone doesn’t unlock the full power of the cloud. While moving workloads to AWS is a crucial first step, modernizing those applications is key to staying ahead of the innovation curve. Migration gets workloads onto AWS, but modernization optimizes them, enabling businesses to fully leverage cloud capabilities and drive innovation.

To accelerate application modernization, AWS introduced Amazon Q Developer Transform. This service offers an automated solution for modernizing legacy .NET, Java, mainframe and other workloads. By automating the process, Amazon Q Developer Transform reduces the manual effort and costs associated with modernization, helping customers quickly modernize complex applications and unlock the full potential of cloud infrastructure.

Borno also highlighted that AWS expanded incentives under the Migration Acceleration Program (MAP) to encourage partners to think bigger. The incentives for modernization partners were restructured to provide more funding support for larger, more strategic modernization projects. By removing previous funding caps, AWS enables partners to access more financial assistance to modernize complex, business-critical workloads.

Expanding the impact of generative AI innovation

Guest speaker Francessca Vasquez, VP of Professional Services and the Generative AI Innovation Center at AWS, highlighted the center's mission to help customers design and scale generative AI solutions. Through its work, AWS has gained valuable insights into successfully transitioning generative AI from pilot projects to full production. AWS is working with partners around the world, including Rackspace Technology®, to expand the reach of the Generative AI Innovation Center.

Moving forward together

The 2024 AWS re:Invent partner keynote underscored the incredible potential of the AWS partner network to drive innovation and transform industries worldwide. Exciting announcements like new competencies, AWS Marketplace enhancements and expanded modernization incentives reflect AWS’s ongoing commitment to simplifying partner collaboration and accelerating customer success.

Through the AWS Professional Services Partner Collective, which includes Rackspace Technology, AWS strengthens relationships, gathers diverse perspectives, and enhances the ability to deliver exceptional customer experiences. When AWS and its partners work in harmony, they amplify value and provide integrated solutions that help customers innovate faster and more effectively. Visit our AWS Marketplace profile to learn more about how we can help you unlock the future of cloud computing and AI with AWS.