The last 12 months have seen the Jisc Cloud Solutions team enhancing our existing cloud partnerships and establishing new ones. At Jisc, we exist to help our members and customers get the most from technology, including public cloud, and our partnerships with the major cloud providers are a key part of us being able to do that. We provide a range of cloud consultancy, professional services and managed services across AWS, Microsoft and Google’s services. Through partner programs we demonstrate our capabilities and bring value to the sector through the benefits it unlocks. Here’s an update on our partnerships:
AWS
We are an AWS Advanced Consulting Partner and Public Sector Solutions Provider. This allows us to resell AWS services, as well as cloud consultancy, professional services and managed services. In March 2021 we achieved Advanced partner status, stepping up from Select status. This demonstrates our capabilities as an AWS partner and brings value to our members and customers through the benefits it unlocks, eg funded PoCs. In order to gain Advanced status we had to improve our performance on a number of fronts including the number of AWS certified staff members in Jisc, the number of new opportunities being won, our overall sales levels, the number of publicly referenceable customers that we have, and our customer satisfaction results. All of this is reviewed annually by AWS to maintain our partner status.
Achieving Advanced status shows how far we have come as an AWS partner and gives us access to attaining AWS competencies which is next on our roadmap to demonstrate our expertise in certain areas.
We are on the following AWS programs:
- Solutions Provider Program – Under this program, Authorized Solution Providers manage, service, support, and bill AWS accounts for end customers.
- Public Sector Partner Program – This recognizes AWS Partners with cloud-based solutions and experience across government, space, education, and non-profits.
- AWS Guided Onboard (GO) program – This allows us to offer 7 AWS-funded workshops, each of which is supported with $500 PoC funding.
Perhaps more importantly for our members, Jisc is the sole UK AWS reseller on the OCRE Cloud Framework offering a 14% discount on nearly all AWS services to the Education & Research sector.
Find out more about our credentials, case studies and news at www.jisc.ac.uk/cloud/partnerships/aws.
Microsoft
We are a Microsoft Direct CSP (Cloud Solutions Provider). Only partners who meet set criteria, which is reviewed annually, can be a Direct CSP. This allows us resell Microsoft cloud services, as well as cloud consultancy, professional services and managed services.
Microsoft have competencies that are designed to prove expertise in delivering high-quality solutions in one or more specialized areas of business. A silver competency demonstrates consistent capability and commitment. A gold competency demonstrates best-in-class capability within a Microsoft solution area.
This year, through staff certification and sales, we have increased the number of both gold and silver competencies we hold. These now include Gold Cloud Platform (Azure) and Gold Cloud Productivity (Microsoft 365).
As a Microsoft partner we are currently able to provide the following funded programs:
- Microsoft Cloud Accelerator workshops
- PoC Funding
- Solution Assessment
Find out more about our credentials, case studies and news at www.jisc.ac.uk/cloud/partnerships/microsoft
At the end of 2020, following staff training, exams, business cases and more partnering criteria, we achieved partnership status with Google Cloud and Google for Education to sell GCP and Google Workspace for Education.
Find out more about our credentials, case studies and news at http://www.jisc.ac.uk/cloud/partnerships/google