As the global pandemic continues to significantly challenge public-sector organizations, Amazon Web Services Inc. is expanding its public-sector footprint to help meet growing cloud-technology demands. To address the countless needs of an often regulated market, AWS continues to invest in an ecosystem of partners to support its global growth. Last week, AWS Public Sector awarded a select group of partners for their unique contributions to this ecosystem, especially now that the world finds itself relying on the public sector to help society effectively deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, work-from-home mandates and historically high unemployment rates.

During her keynote for the recently concluded AWS Public Sector Summit, Teresa Carlson, vice president of worldwide public sector at AWS, indicated that the outbreak of COVID-19 had actually spurred government agencies to migrate operations to the cloud at a record pace. 

Reiterating the public sector’s need for scalable solutions, Sandy Carter, vice president of the worldwide public sector partners and programs at AWS, underscored that notion during a recent conversation with theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, saying, “All the agencies had this tidal wave of digital transformation. Things that were going to take them years ended up taking weeks or months.”

To meet growing demand from government, education, nonprofit and healthcare organizations, AWS is relying on key partnerships to leverage its cloud-computing technology. And the effort is paying off.

“AWS public sector, based on the data that I see, is significantly outpacing the growth of AWS overall,” said Dave Vellante, chief analyst at Wikibon and co-host of theCUBE. “It’s also keeping pace with the growth of Microsoft Azure. It really is a shining star inside of AWS.”

Each year, AWS honors its Partner Network, which plays a key role in helping its customers drive innovation and build solutions on AWS technology. AWS just announced the winners of its 2020 Public Sector Partners Awards, which included categories such as “Best Solution Delivering COVID-19 Value,” “Best High-Performance Computing Solution,” “Best Remote Learning Solution,” and “Most Innovative AI/ML Solution,” among many others. The complete list of award winners is below, including CloudHesive for its cybersecurity solutions, DataDog Inc. for its mission-based efforts and Minfy Technologies for its integrated training program.

Growing a customer-centric ecosystem at scale

Known for working backwards from customer needs, AWS has steadily sought out partners to aid in this goal. Whether a consulting partner or a technology partner, this growing network of allies is fast becoming an extension of AWS culture. 

In a blog post unveiling the new awards program last year, Carter established the customer-centric accomplishments of those standout partners, thanking the awardees for their “customer obsession and contribution to our customers’ success.”

A year later amidst a global pandemic and social unrest, the role of AWS’ public-sector efforts are more important than ever as it expands its partner network and devotes more resources into training and certification programs. Spanning education, nonprofit and government initiatives, AWS certifications are industry-specific and designed to inform customers of the most worthy within the partner ecosystem.

Overall, the AWS Partner Program extends a network of services to boost AWS’ global growth in the public sector, which has increased its data-center footprint in working directly with regional governments, cities and nations for computing infrastructure at scale. As AWS objectives grow in the public sector, so too must its ecosystem of partner services to support the specific needs of often regulated or budget-restricted markets.

Winners of the 2020 AWS Public Sector Partners Awards

This year’s winners of the 2020 AWS Public Sector Partners Awards are:

• Most Innovative Connect Deployment: Accenture Canada
• Most Customer Obsessed Mission Based Win – Federal: Accenture Federal Services
• Most Innovative Artificial Intelligence (AI) or Machine Learning (ML) Solution: Axial3D
• Most Customer Obsessed Mission Based Win – Regional: Capgemini
• Best Cybersecurity Solution: CloudHesive
• Best Solution Delivering COVID-19 Value: Cloudticity (consulting partner) Carahsoft (distribution partner)
• Best Mission-Based Data Solution: Datadog
• Most Customer Obsessed Mission Based Win – State: Deloitte
• Best Remote Learning Solution: eLumin
• Most Customer Obsessed – Mission: Four Points Technology
• Best High Performance Computing Solution: Maxar Technologies
• Best Training Solution: Minfy Technologies
• Best EDU Solution: NorthBay
• Best New COVID-19 Solution from a Technology Partner: Salesforce
• Delivering Results for the Department of Defense: SAP NS2
• Most Customer Obsessed Mission Based Win – Federal Civilian: T-Rex Solutions
• Most Customer Obsessed Migration: Tech Mahindra
• Best Remote Work Solution: Tyler Technologies

Livestream of the 2020 AWS Public Sector Partner Awards

TheCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, will be hosting a special online event to honor the winners of this year’s AWS Public Sector Partner Awards Program. TheCUBE analysts will speak with Carlson and AWS public-sector partners, as well as public organization officials to discuss real-world partnership results. Watch live on  August 6 starting at 12 p.m. ET or on demand following the live airing. (* Disclosure below.)

How to watch theCUBE interviews

We offer you various ways to watch the live coverage of the AWS Summit Public Sector Online, including theCUBE’s dedicated website and YouTube channel. You can also get all the coverage from this year’s events on SiliconANGLE.

TheCUBE Insights podcast

SiliconANGLE also has podcasts available of archived interview sessions, available on iTunes, Stitcher, and Spotify, which you can enjoy while on the go.

Guests who will be interviewed on theCUBE to discuss the 2020 AWS Public Sector Partner Awards

Guests who will be interviewed on theCUBE to discuss the 2020 AWS Public Sector Partner Awards event include Joel Marchildon, partner at Accenture; Mohammad Haque, co-founder and SVP of architecture and engineering at eLumin; Greg Siegal, program executive at Accenture Federal services; Travis Hartman, director of analytics and weather at Maxar Technologies; Jared Bell, engineering manager at T-Rex Solutions; Satyendra Gupta, director for enterprise resource planning, CPWD for the Government of India; Jim Keller, president at NorthBay Solutions; Frank Urbano, program manager for the FBI; and Sandy Peters, VP and GM of virtual courts and incode court at Tyler Technologies.

We will also be interviewing industry executives Roger Johnston, CEO of axial3D; Gautam Chatterjee, sales leader India public sector at Tech Mahindra; Benoît Long, CTO at Employment and Social Development Canada; Gerry Miller, founder and CEO of Cloudticity; Leonardo Bracco, executive director LATAM at CloudHesive; Sonya Cates, CCM, CCII, court administrator; Mercedes Mendez Ribas, institutional development director at CIPPEC.

Other guests joining theCUBE include Dr. Tim Brown, consultant transplant surgeon at Belfast City Hospital; Chad Burton, Ph.D., data and privacy officer at Pitt IT at University of Pittsburgh; Damian Doyle, associate VP of enterprise infrastructure solutions at University of Maryland Baltimore County; Scott Obermeyer, director of network services at Maryville University of Saint Louis; Michael Thieme, director for decennial census programs, systems & contracts at the US Census Bureau; Jim Kirkwood, director of healthcare innovation for the Department of Health in the State of New York; Ryan Hillard, IT specialist/systems developer for the U.S. Small Business Administration; Vijay Tallapragada, chief, modeling and data assimilation branch at NOAA/NWS/NCEP/EMC; and an executive from Four Points Technology.

For the complete guest list, visit cube365.net. 

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for AWS Public Sector Partner Awards 2020 online event. Neither Amazon Web Services Inc., the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: AWS