- Amazon Web Services has announced the general availability of AWS IQ, a new service that helps customers quickly find, engage, and do business with AWS-Certified third party experts for on-demand work
Amazon Web Services has announced the general availability of AWS IQ, which is a new service that helps customers quickly find, engage, and do business with AWS-Certified third party experts for on-demand project work. And AWS IQ offers tools and workspace for more secure collaboration, streamlined project tracking, and integrated billing.
Customers can get started any simply logging into AWS IQ and describing their project needs in a few sentences. Then they can then chat with experts to clarify details of the project, compare proposals, review expert profiles, and select the expert that best fits their needs.
To use AWS IQ, there are no upfront commitments required. And customers pay for completed project milestones through their existing AWS account.
A number of small and mid-sized businesses have been using AWS for its secure, flexible, cost-effective, and scalable infrastructure and services. And as those customers begin or expand their use of AWS, they sometimes need assistance with executing or thinking through a project. And they could benefit from specialized knowledge and experience.
Customers can work with third-party experts to help them achieve their goals, but finding the right expertise, cost-equation, and fit can be time-consuming. Plus getting an expert set up with secure access to the customer’s AWS environment can be complex. And even if a customer finds a highly qualified expert that they trust, they still have to deal with administrative chores such as project tracking and payment processing.
AWS IQ makes this process simpler by finding and connecting with AWS-Certified experts for consultation or project-based work. And customers only need to describe their needs in a few sentences to personalized responses directly from experts who can help. Then they can evaluate expert profiles, view expert ratings, compare details such as rates and relevant AWS Certifications, and make an informed decision without spending time browsing forums or hunting down information across websites. And AWS-Certified experts can also help get projects started and completed faster with quick consultations or hands-on implementation.
With AWS IQ, customers can find help with a range of topics such as selecting the right architecture for a given workload, diving deep into the capabilities of AWS services, automating infrastructure deployment, migrating to AWS, and optimizing AWS spend. And AWS IQ also simplifies the traditionally complex business and technical aspects of working with an external expert.
Customers and experts agree to a defined scope of work and budget and then manage the entire process using AWS IQ’s integrated tools for encrypted chat, video conferencing, billing, etc. After the project is underway, customers can temporarily grant experts project-appropriate access to their AWS environment, monitor activity through AWS CloudTrail logs, and they can revoke access at any time.
Plus customers approve payment requests as work is completed and are billed directly to their AWS account. Using AWS IQ, customers can reduce the legwork and uncertainty involved in finding an AWS-Certified expert, cut down on administrative overhead required for managing the engagement, and building projects faster.
“Many of our customers, especially small businesses and entrepreneurs, tell us that they have projects in mind that could really transform their businesses, but they need additional expertise to help them build these projects faster,” said Amazon Web Services VP of Amazon AI Swami Sivasubramanian. “At the same time, we have an incredible community of knowledgeable and passionate AWS-Certified experts who offer exactly what these customers need to achieve their business goals. We built AWS IQ to serve as a bridge between our customers and experts, enabling them to get to work on new projects faster and easier, and removing many of the hassles and roadblocks that both groups usually encounter when dealing with project-based work.”
AWS IQ helps experts find relevant opportunities, communicate with clients, track projects, and get paid for completed work in one place. To join AWS IQ, experts need to have an Associate, Professional, or Specialty AWS-Certification and complete an identity check.
Anaconda serves more than 15 million users and provides a popular data science platform and a foundation of modern machine learning.
“Through AWS IQ, we found several experts with years of experience in AWS architecture,” added Anaconda CEO Scott Collison. “We were able to evaluate several experts’ project proposals, compare costs, and select the most appropriate expert for our project. After a successful first consultative engagement, we decided to have the expert implement the recommendations directly within our AWS account. AWS IQ shaved weeks off this high priority project and allowed us to deliver value for our customers sooner.”
Empowered to Run is a non-profit known for training thoughtful leaders everywhere to run for office successfully and govern effectively. And it is developing scalable online tools to guide candidates for the 520,000+ state and local offices nationwide.
“As a civic tech startup, we need to bootstrap robust, efficient tools – and to build them, we need to be able to tap experts quickly and inexpensively,” explained Dr. Steve Sinha, the CEO of Empowered To Run. “We used AWS IQ to connect with four friendly AWS-Certified architects and developers in a matter of hours to solve a critical challenge we’ve been wrestling with. Within a few more hours, we were kicking off a defined and scoped project, within budget, plugging an expert directly into our development environment with just a few clicks.”
Elementryx — a boutique AWS Advanced Consulting Partner — has expertise in DevOps and infrastructure as code.
“As an AWS Advanced Partner, we love working with customers on complex projects, but we also spend a big portion of our time tracking down leads, getting set up with customers, managing billing, and tracking payments.” commented Yosef van Bemmelen, a co-founder and Head of Business Development at Elementryx. “Because AWS IQ connects us directly with clients and streamlines tricky processes like billing, we can spend less time worrying about back-office tasks and more time doing the work we enjoy, that we’re great at, and that produces direct value for clients.”
Belle Fleur Technologies is also an AWS Consulting Partner. And it offers a complete array of solutions for pipelining, storing, enriching, and serving data.
“What excites us most about AWS IQ is the ways in which it will help us scale our business and connect with customers we’d otherwise never have a chance to work with,” noted Tia Dubuisson, the president and co-founder of Belle Fleur Technologies. “With AWS IQ, we will be able to provide our solutions to customers across the globe, helping more organizations to leverage AWS services, work more efficiently, and find data-driven decisions.”
I/O merchant — a cloud solution provider that is focused on AWS cloud strategy and implementation — is known for helping businesses lay a solid cloud foundation.
“AWS IQ is the missing link between AWS customers and AWS experts,” stated Henrik Balle, a Principal and Lead Cloud Enterprise Architect at I/O merchant. “As an AWS expert, AWS IQ will help me better help my customers where they have very targeted needs, are struggling to get started with the cloud, or are wanting to accelerate their cloud presence without committing to new full-time resources.“
