Datacom one of world's first Amazon MSPs

Datacom has been revealed as the first company in Australia to join the new Amazon Web Services Managed Service Program, one of fewer than 20 worldwide.

The New Zealand-headquartered IT solutions provider had to complete a "stringent third-party independent audit" for the new AWS Managed Service Provider program, which replaced the Managed Service Provider Competency last year.

The third-party audit process reviews more than 75 checklist items across 18 capability areas including security, application and infrastructure migration, solution design, process optimisation and customer support.

The AWS Managed Service Provider Program was first revealed at the company's Re:invent conference in 2014, with the initial six partners announced in March.

It's a coup for Datacom, which has stolen a march on the only two AWS Premier partners in Australia, Bulletproof and Melbourne IT.

AWS is just one of several public cloud partners for Datacom, which also boasts its own network of data centres. "Datacom has 12 data centres in our network across the group, built, owned and operated to world-class specifications, with capacity for around 2500 racks. It’s important to note that all our facilities are carrier-neutral and in Australia, in some locations, we use third party data centres," a spokesperson told CRN.

Datacom is seeing demand across its data centre, private and public cloud offering. "Our private cloud solutions in government and commercial markets have experienced continued growth. There are a variety of customers and application workloads that make sense to move to AWS. The scale of workload shifting from on premise is such that there are growth opportunities in all areas."

Shane Owenby, AWS managing director of Asia Pacific, said: "Meeting the substantial requirements to join the AWS Managed Service Program reflects Datacom’s commitment to enable customers to effectively run mission-critical applications on the AWS cloud."

AWS continues to work with several partners in Australia to "steward them into the new AWS Managed Service Provider program", said a spokesperson for the public cloud provider.

The public cloud vendor continues to beef up its channel credentials, with Datacom praising AWS "for the speed with which AWS have recognised the critical role that partners like Datacom play. The structure of, and resourcing commitment to, the partner program is really positive."

In April, AWS appointed Stefan Jansen to the role of head of channel and alliances. Jansen joined AWS around two years ago following a decade at Microsoft Australia.

The latest AWS partnership is the third for Datacom, which is already an AWS Channel Reseller and AWS Government Partner Program member.

It's already been a strong year for Datacom, which plucked IBM's prized $242 million contract with the Department of Health in April.

Datacom recently announced a partnership with distributor 3D Printing Systems and software vendor Makers Empire to offer a full 3D printing solution to primary schools.