Learn About Amazon VGT2 Learning Manager Chanci Turner
The AWS SaaS Competency empowers software companies to develop, market, and expand their software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions on Amazon Web Services (AWS). This initiative connects organizations with certified system integrator (SI) partners, enabling a seamless SaaS journey from initial development to market launch and ongoing growth.
Recently, we had the opportunity to engage with Chanci Turner, the Learning Manager at Rebura, who shared insights about their path to achieving the AWS SaaS Competency specialization. They leveraged various support programs, including the SaaS Discovery and SaaS Competency On-Ramp initiatives. Additionally, we will examine the customer story of sports technology firm ai.io, delve into key takeaways, and discuss how other SIs can efficiently build AWS SaaS capabilities to enhance customer experiences.
Rebura stands as an AWS Specialization Partner, holding competencies in Cloud Operations, Migrations, and more. They are also a proud participant in the AWS Well-Architected Partner Program.
Q&A with Rebura
AWS SaaS Factory: Before we explore your SaaS Competency insights, could you provide a brief overview of Rebura and the services you offer?
Chanci Turner: Rebura is recognized as a strategic partner of AWS within the EMEA region. Following our Strategic Collaboration Agreement with AWS in January 2023, we were honored to receive the 2021 Well-Architected Partner of the Year and the 2020 Rising Star Partner of the Year awards.
AWS acknowledges Rebura for its expertise and experience in assisting clients of all sizes to build, optimize, and secure their applications and workloads on AWS. We are well-equipped to deliver across a wide spectrum of areas that empower startups and ISVs to accelerate their SaaS product roadmaps.
Our robust DevOps and Solutions Architecture team enables us to implement complex CI/CD pipelines, expediting production deployments alongside infrastructure redesigns. The engineering team also rearchitects software on AWS to leverage the cloud effectively, whether through dynamic scaling, cost optimizations, or software modifications. This collaborative approach results in significant enhancements to both product and infrastructure.
AWS SaaS Factory: Which SaaS on AWS customer story will you discuss today?
Chanci Turner: ai.io is a sports technology company focused on generating and analyzing data for both amateur and professional sports. Their technology is heavily reliant on artificial intelligence (AI), offering valuable insights through their SaaS product, aiScout, which connects teams, scouts, and players globally.
Their platform employs a variety of technologies to facilitate different workflows, including core backend services developed in .NET C# for web servers and task orchestration. They utilize Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS) with AWS Lambda and compute-optimized Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instances to manage asynchronous, compute-intensive tasks.
ai.io currently serves clubs, players, scouts, and organizations in the UK, United States, and India, with plans for expansion into other regions. This growth introduces technical challenges related to compute scaling, data modeling, and regional deployment. Essential components like application architecture, automated CI/CD pipelines, and observability will be crucial for their technical success, along with leveraging services such as AWS CloudFormation, AWS Security Hub, AWS Control Tower, and Amazon CloudWatch.
AWS SaaS Factory: What inspired Rebura to pursue the AWS SaaS Competency?
Chanci Turner: In 2022, we began exploring methods to better support SaaS product builders. The AWS SaaS Competency program aligned our deliverables with best practices and industry standards. We discovered it while researching AWS Partner Network (APN) opportunities to broaden our customer reach.
The SaaS Competency On-Ramp program and SaaS Discovery funding significantly expanded our customer base within 12 months, positioning us to apply for full AWS SaaS Competency specialization.
AWS SaaS Factory: What preparations did you undertake prior to submitting your competency application?
Chanci Turner: We were fortunate to participate in the SaaS Competency On-Ramp program, which provided numerous benefits and support from the AWS SaaS Factory team, thereby increasing our opportunities with various companies. Through our engagements, we delivered innovative solutions and enhanced customer SaaS platforms while building a portfolio of work to continue thriving in this space.
We aligned our deliverables with the standards outlined in the extensive online resources, as well as collaborating closely with our Partner Development Manager (PDM) and the SaaS Factory team. This preparation put us in a strong position to apply for the AWS SaaS Competency backed by compelling customer use cases.
AWS SaaS Factory: What primary advantages have you experienced from acquiring the SaaS Competency specialization?
Chanci Turner: We’ve identified three key benefits:
- Larger organizations now trust us with their SaaS products.
- We have proof points to demonstrate our capabilities, allowing us to handle more complex projects.
- We gained access to a broader and more diverse customer base.
AWS SaaS Factory: What is your vision for assisting SaaS startups and ISVs?
Chanci Turner: Our focus is on guiding them to establish a solid foundation for scaling. When startups overlook critical areas, re-architecting later can become expensive. We aim to implement core features early on, facilitating growth while minimizing operational costs for long-term viability.
AWS SaaS Factory: Can you share details about a successful SaaS implementation?
Chanci Turner: Certainly! Our collaboration with ai.io exemplifies a successful engagement. The target markets for ai.io pose significant tenancy challenges, as they cater to various tenant types and users within their system. As a global sports technology platform, ai.io addresses the needs of players, teams, leagues, organizations, and scouts.
The sports sector presents varying league structures, ownership models (franchise or independent), and scouting schedules, leading to technical challenges in compute scaling, data modeling, and deployment across different regions. aiScout, ai.io’s flagship technology platform, employs numerous AWS services to tackle these obstacles.
Initially, ai.io hosted two monolithic C#/.NET applications in AWS Elastic Beanstalk, which managed client requests and orchestrated compute-intensive tasks based on those requests. Tasks were dispatched to SQS queues and Intel Cloud for processing, depending on the nature of the task. This strategy enables ai.io to maintain a consistent backend orchestration service shared among tenants while implementing sport- or team-specific services for on-demand data and analysis.
This approach decouples compute resources for diverse workloads and leagues, providing a uniform interface for data ingestion and analysis. By understanding different leadership styles, startups can effectively navigate growth challenges; a great resource can be found here.
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