At its annual Partner Summit event this week, Amazon Web Services recognized a wide range of channel partners through its 2021 Canada AWS Partner Awards.
“AWS Partners are helping customers become more agile and innovate faster across a wide range of industries, from banking and finance to the public sector, and increasingly, the Canadian startup sector,” said Eric Gales, AWS Canada country manager in a May 12 news release. ”
He noted this year’s winners have helped customers tap into the more than 200 AWS services, some of whom have taken those capabilities and created “entirely new solutions to market.” Other winners, he added, have been working with AWS since the launch of AWS Canada (Central) Region more than four years ago.
AWS says the following winners were selected by a panel of “AWS experts.”
AWS Rising Star of the Year
This is an AWS Partner which has gone from zero to hero during 2020.
Winner: Quantiphi—an award-winning applied AI and big data software and services company driven by the desire to solve transformational problems at the heart of the business—ramped up on their local capabilities and capacity in Canada. In 2020, in addition to supporting customers, Quantiphi developed 10 solutions for AWS Marketplace, and continued to invest in AWS skills development, certifying more than 450 employees.
AWS Consulting Partner of the Year:
An AWS Consulting Partner who has delivered consistently well throughout the period, developed their AWS business and grown with AWS during 2020.
Winner: In 2020, Vancouver-based OpsGuru, delivered exceptional migrations, DevOps and SaaS transformations to Canadian AWS customers. By leveraging OpsGuru’s signature Cloud Launchpad, organizations were able to jump-start their AWS journeys, empower their employees and dramatically reduce time to market. By targeting comprehensive coverage of the entire cloud journey from Cloud Adoption through Kubernetes enablement, OpsGuru grew its headcount by 306 per cent and revenues by over 400 per cent year over year.
AWS ISV Partner of the Year
An AWS ISV Technology Partner who has leveraged the best of AWS Services and continued to expand and grow with AWS during 2020.
Winner: CrowdStrike fits in with the shared responsibility model of cloud security by enabling customers secure their workloads and data ‘in the cloud’. CrowdStrike is cloud-delivered next-generation endpoint protection platform with unified next-generation antivirus, endpoint detection and response (EDR), IT hygiene and a 24/7 managed hunting service — all delivered via a single lightweight agent. In 2020, customers saw a rise in security threats and breaches and CrowdStrike continued to be a top partner to help customers improve their security posture.
AWS Migration Partner of the Year
An AWS Partner who has gone deep with AWS in a specific service, industry or competency and delivered results with AWS during 2020.
Winner: With 15 AWS competencies and more than 2,700 certifications, Onica, a Rackspace Technology company, is the dedicated AWS business at Rackspace Technology. As a top strategic partner, Onica works jointly with the AWS Migration Acceleration Program team to grow and accelerate customer migrations in Canada. In 2020, Onica had a phenomenal year reaching its goals and worked on notable projects with significant social impact.
AWS Social Impact Partner of the Year
An AWS Partner who has shown deep commitment to providing consulting services and or technology offerings that have great social impact with proven customer success in 2020.
Winner: Toronto-headquartered SmartSimple Software Inc. (“SmartSimple”) is a global leader in cloud-based grantmaking and corporate responsibility solutions. SmartSimple is trusted by 400 clients including prominent foundations, Fortune 500 companies, and government funders. In 2020, SmartSimple’s platform helped to empower Vancouver Foundation to provide rapid and essential relief to communities across British Columbia impacted by COVID-19 through its Community Response Fund. In a matter of days, Vancouver Foundation developed a nimble granting model, recruited advisors, and began processing funding requests from frontline health and social service charities and arts and culture groups seeking immediate support. Since the beginning of the pandemic, Vancouver Foundation has granted $19.9 million to 591 charities across the province. In 2020, SmartSimple’s configurable platform has helped to connect 1.1 million end-users across 192 countries to $9 billion in critical funding.
AWS Public Sector Partner of the Year
An AWS Partner who has shown deep commitment to providing consulting services and or ISV offerings in the public sector space in 2020.
Winner: Accenture is a leading, global professional services company with leading capabilities in digital, cloud and security that provides an end-to-end solution to migrate to and manage operations on AWS through the Accenture AWS Business Group, formed in 2015 with AWS. In 2020, Accenture leveraged AWS competencies, prebuilt AWS assets, and deeply skilled & certified AWS resources to partnered closely with AWS to drive innovative digital solutions that supported federal and provincial governments in Canada, as well as public health.
