Highlights from AWS re:Invent Partner Keynote

On Thursday, AWS re:Invent turned the spotlight to their partners and the role they play in helping customers transform and innovate. Beyond just the technology, AWS partners deliver strong leadership, with talent that’s hungry to invent, and a focus on solving real customer problems. Doug Yeum, Head of Amazon Web Services’ Global Partner Organization, called out Rackspace Technology in this regard:

“Reinvention is about strong leadership, when I look at some of our consulting partners like Accenture, Slalom and Rackspace who are successfully transforming into cloud first companies, the leaders of these companies play an extremely important role.”

Doug Yeum
Head of Global Partner Organization, AWS

Yeum explained that AWS partners are all-in when it comes to the cloud. They set big goals and aren’t afraid to make big changes in order to lead and shape the future of their company — and they’re committed to moving fast.

As these partners double down on their investments to grow their AWS practices and build solutions on AWS, AWS in turn makes big investments in these partners, helping them in their transformation journeys. AWS comes alongside and helps partners maximize the value of their customer relationships, deep industry experience and unique offerings, so they can deliver differentiated value to their customers. In short, AWS helps their partners become better prepared for the future, and customers end up the big winners.

Professional services now available on the AWS Marketplace

To help you make the most of the AWS Partner Network, AWS has expanded their AWS Marketplace to now include professional services. This means you can get not only the technology solutions you need, but also the hands-on expertise to make the most of those solutions. Rackspace Technology is proud to be an AWS launch partner, and one of the first to offer professional services on the AWS Marketplace.  

Find the right AWS Partner for your project

When you need an AWS Partner with a proven specialty, you can turn to the AWS Competency Program. From industries, use cases and workloads, the AWS Competency Program can help you find the right partner.

AWS announced two new competencies during the Partner Keynote:
 

• AWS SaaS Competency: Introduced earlier this year, this competency recognizes consulting partners that have deep experience helping companies build SaaS and cloud native solutions on AWS. Only 27 consulting partners have achieved this competency, including Rackspace Technology and Onica, a Rackspace Technology company.
   
• New industry competencies: Designed around the needs and COVID-19 challenges that travel-related businesses are facing, AWS has launched the Travel and Hospitality Competency, and Rackspace Technology is one of a growing list of partners. Other industry-specific competencies announced include Public Safety & Disaster Response and Energy.

Solving Together with Southwest Airlines

Onica, a Rackspace Technology company, was highlighted during the event, for excellence in travel and hospitality and their cloud native approach. Lauren Woods, Managing Director of Technology at Southwest Airlines took the spotlight to share how their multi-year journey to the cloud with AWS and Onica gave them the foundation to stay resilient and innovate amid crisis.

Working with Onica, Southwest Airlines re-architected OpsSuite, a major application that had been plagued with cold starts, manual deployments and static infrastructure. The Onica team worked alongside the Southwest Airlines technology team to modernize OpsSuite, selecting Amazon Elastic Kubernetes service to containerize applications that support flight scheduling, gate assignments, turn productivity and network optimization.

By leveraging Amazon EKS and 17 other cloud native AWS services, deployments are now safer and entirely automated. Releases that previously took hours, now take seconds. And if issues arise, releases can be automatically rolled back to earlier versions. With so many conditions, such as weather, maintenance and air traffic, which can impact departure and arrival time, Southwest Airlines and its customers now have access to the most accurate information faster than ever before.

After experiencing the transformative power that a cloud native approach can have with Onica and AWS, Southwest Airlines is now taking steps to become a cloud native organization — working with Onica on additional projects that will drive more innovation, optimization and customer-centric outcomes.

Looking optimistically to the future, Woods shared, “With the support of AWS, and our AWS partners, and especially the heart of our people, we will emerge from this storm of challenging times stronger than ever before.”

Make the most of re:Invent 2020

This year’s re:Invent is a three-week event, all virtual, and free. To watch the event live or view recordings, register here and don’t forget to visit the Rackspace Technology virtual booth to learn more about our new AWS solutions and enjoy an immersive interactive experience.