Updates to the AWS Foundational Technical Review

By Jing Ning, Sr. Partner Solution Architect – AWS
By Krystle DuBeau, Sr. Product Manager – AWS
By Renata Lai, Senior Product Manager – AWS

As part of the AWS Partner experience transformation, we’re streamlining the AWS Foundational Technical Review (FTR) process—including extending the renewal period and waiving the FTR for partners that have completed an AWS Well-Architected Framework Review.

The AWS Foundational Technical Review (FTR) helps partners adopt AWS technical best practices specific to their software or solution. Partners can leverage the FTR to adopt security and technical best practices, increase discoverability, and accelerate their journey with Amazon Web Services (AWS). The FTR processes uses Amazon Bedrock to speed up reviews and response time, allowing partners to receive faster feedback and approvals for their submissions.

Qualified solutions and services are published in AWS Partner Solutions Finder and internal AWS sales discovery tools. These listings highlight partners’ superpowers and detail the use cases and industry workloads the solution supports, making it easier for customers to find the right partner for the right opportunity.

This post covers the latest updates to the FTR and key benefits for partners.

What’s new

The latest updates save partners’ time and increase efficiency, while continuing to ensure they have the foundational AWS capabilities needed for customer success:

• Faster response time using Amazon Bedrock: Partners can now receive FTR approval in as little as 30 minutes if the submission meets AWS FTR requirements—potentially reducing partners’ wait time for from days to minutes.
• FTR waived with AWS Well-Architected Framework Review: Partners on the Software Path who completed an AWS Well-Architected Framework Review led by AWS within the last 12 months and without high-risk items can now use this to obtain FTR approval. This reduces duplicative efforts for partners who have already adopted AWS best practices.
• Renewal period extended from 2 to 3 years: Partners on the Software Path and Services Path are required to submit FTR renewal requests before the due date to maintain the Validated stage. The extended renewal period saves partners’ time, while ensuring their solutions continue to meet the standards set by the FTR.

Benefits

Validating solutions through the FTR allows partners to target specific industries and use cases, showcase their skills, remediate risks for security and reliability, enhance their offering discoverability, and accelerate their partner journey to differentiated solutions.

• Adopt AWS best practices: The FTR provides guidance on adopting best practices that are key to customer success. Adopting the right foundation increases the long-term success of partner solutions and establishes scalable mechanisms.
• Increase your visibility: Solutions validated through the FTR are published in AWS Partner Solutions Finder where AWS customers can find and engage with partners based on their unique business needs. These validated solutions are also searchable by AWS Sales team to support co-sell motions. Partners have incorporated these listings in their go-to-market activities, Immersion Days, workshops, and social posts to target specific customers and enhance their campaigns.
• Differentiate your solution: As a solution scales, adopting the right foundation can help accelerate your journey to AWS Specializations, such as AWS Competency and AWS Service Delivery.

Partner testimonials

To accelerate response time for partners, we incorporated Amazon Bedrock into the FTR process. This optimization reduced review times, improved response speed, and enhanced the overall partner experience. We tested the automation with the following partners: CDW Canada, Pragma, SLTN, Redington Gulf, ADASTRA, Anduril Industries, FormAssembly, and Pentasoft.

“The recently implemented FTR process has substantially reduced the approval time,” says Jean-Claude Quirion, AWS Tech Lead at CDW Canada. “This enhancement enabled us to focus more time towards business-generating activities while simultaneously accelerating the growth of our offerings.”

The improvements in day-to-day operations have been significant. “The automated process significantly improved our efficiency by eliminating the need for lengthy wait times,” says Martin Aristizabal, Cloud Architect and Consultant at Pragma. “This allowed us to load services on the same day, streamlining our workflow and accelerating our offering publishing.”

“FTR process automation enhances the overall user experience by delivering efficiency and convenience,” says Niranjan Manjunath, Senior Cloud Consultant (AWS) at SLTN FourCo IT Services. “The almost-instant feedback ensures transparency and allows for quick modifications, creating a seamless and satisfying experience.”

By delivering solutions faster, partners can earn customer trust and grow their business. “The new AI-powered FTR streamlines the assessment process, cutting our review time from weeks to just minutes,” says Jaime González, CTO at Pentasoft. “This efficiency boost is instrumental in accelerating our AWS-based solutions time to market.”

Johannes Mellenthin, Vice President Cloud DACH of ADASTRA, summarizes the broader impact: “With the new automated FTR process, what once took weeks is now completed in mere minutes. This increased efficiency enables us to focus on delivering greater value to our customers while maintaining compliance with AWS standards. It has the potential to transform the way we work, enabling us to allocate resources more effectively and drive innovation.”

Eligible solutions

The FTR is applicable to software solutions, or a broad range of packaged, end-to-end solutions, which can be delivered via repeatable consulting engagements, including:

• Software solutions: The software products that run on or are integrated with AWS. Examples include SaaS application running on AWS or a product deployed on Amazon EC2 running in the customer’s AWS account. All critical application components of the solution must be hosted on AWS.
• Professional services: A range of services that supplement customers’ teams with specialized skills and experience to help them achieve sustainable business advantages. Professional services include the design, implementation, deployment, and adoption of AWS cloud-based solutions. They may also include training and ongoing support.
• Consulting services: As part of the wide range of professional services, consulting services are often provided as a standalone service. Examples include regulatory and compliance consulting, risk management and controls, and cost optimization. Partners offering consulting services produce artifacts such as compliance reports, security posture assessments, and Well-Architected Framework reviews.
• Managed services: Full lifecycle solutions—from consultation on initial solution design to building applications, through ongoing optimization and support. Examples include security management, incidence response, application management, application modernization, and CI/CD pipeline management.

Partners can validate and publish multiple eligible solutions. The FTR validates a partners’ technical and customer engagement capabilities and mitigates risks for customers, partners, and AWS.

Each solution is validated against a set of foundational controls. This includes assessing technical capabilities in areas like, security, reliability, operational excellence, domain expertise, and risk mitigation; as well as customer-facing capabilities like project management, solution implementation, and outcome assessment.

Get started

AWS Partners on the Software Path or Services Path can learn more about applying to review and validate their service offerings in the FTR Guide (Software I Services) in AWS Partner Central (login required).

Once a solution is created and the Foundational Technical Review is requested in Partner Central, a Partner Solutions Architect will reach out with next steps.