AWS, Partners' Balancing Act Weighs on Users, Too

AWS partners are an essential part of growing ecosystem, but the choice of third-party services and the waiting game for native tools can create problems for users.

There is a constant balance between Amazon AWS and its partners on the best way to fill gaps in its cloud platform - and that creates a set of dilemmas for customers, too.

Amazon has made considerable efforts in recent years in expanding its ecosystem, with more than 2,400 partners in the AWS technology and consulting. At the same time, it is constantly producing enhancements to its cloud platform, adding hundreds of improvements and new services each year. These parallel efforts can create a strain that both sides are trying to fill the gaps. For customers, the uncertainty surrounding the evolution of ecosystems can mean difficult decisions for their own environment.

Amazon releases the minimum viable product and iterate from there to add more features, so the challenge is often decide to wait until these additions or go third, said Theo Kim, vice president of technical operations and safety Jobvite, Inc., recruiting software company in San Mateo, California. Kim used the example of Amazon Web application Firewall that he says has an excellent price point, but maintained for Jobvite awaited version that supports load balancing elastic (ELB).

Jobvite has its SOC II soon, so the company is in a logic test alert if Amazon is concrete. If the ELB support are not available in late May, Jobvite go with the third tool - you need something in place of the audit, despite the preference for native tools when all things are equal.

"It's always a dilemma we face," Kim said.

elastic storage file, still in beta, is another example where the company is heading to a third party, in this case, storage Zadara because not known whether the new storage service is worth the change.

"We expected and waiting and wondering if they will ever go GA," Kim said. "We could not wait, so we had to do something."

GREE, a gaming company based in San Francisco, uses systems aviatrix implement trans-regional clusters of CVP welled in AWS. the decision to build was taken vs. buy scenario, said David Pippenger, senior engineer operations. While in theory it could be aviatrix "squashed like a bug" if Amazon wanted to offer a similar service, GREE chose Aviatrix because he was able to essentially replace your network engineer by the third party vendor.

"It worked very well for us until the substrate and movement," Pippenger said. "We came out games and we should be dealing with the netting material."

Cloud users go through phases in which start with the basics, such concepts as EC2 instances, but it becomes a slippery slope from there, Pippenger said. Third-party tools can be helpful, but the first choice is to go with native tools if available.

"We have no illusions," Pippenger said. "It's all in on Amazon for us and all the goodies."

GREE has changed significantly in the containers and considered using Kubernetes rancher or to run on AWS, but finally decided to go with EC2 Container Service, as it was easier to align infrastructure.

In some cases, even if Amazon began offering a similar service would not be painless. GREE using other third-party tools for recording, monitoring and performance management applications, and there is a degree of dependence on a supplier involved because of the pain that would come with a switch, Pippenger said.

It is a difficult border of Amazon to manage because it is so focused on their community partners AWS said Robert Stroud, principal analyst at Forrester Research Inc. in Cambridge, Massachusetts. As increase in basic services for AWS, the sophistication of services partners must do the same.

"Amazon can not necessarily overcome the overall market and market segments for themselves, so they have to play with community partners, which is an absolute fact," Stroud said.

For users, these decisions are not simple and made case by case, Kim said. Many customers say that basic services are sufficient, but in other cases, the third tool is worth the extra cost because the features are so rich.