As Amazon Web Services takes the enterprise by storm, it’s relying heavily on partners to help new customers onboard to AWS and navigate the cloudy landscape of software-led services. To the credit of AWS’s growing ecosystem, partners like Rackspace Inc. are investing heavily in the development of technical resources and AWS expertise necessary to deploy and manage customer solutions on the AWS Cloud.

With the recent achievement of Premier Partner status within the AWS Partner Network, Rackspace has reached the highest level of APN. To tell us more about the AWS partnership, as well as the opportunities for investing in public cloud, Rackspace CTO John Engates joined John Furrier (@furrier) and Stu Miniman (@stu), co-hosts of theCUBE*, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, during AWS re:Invent.

Rackspace’s standing experience with AWS proved useful as the cloud management platform began to receive customer requests for assistance in setting up infrastructure services on AWS. Speaking of the announcements at AWS re:Invent for analytics, machine learning and the Internet of Things solutions, Engates highlighted the “really cool technologies” companies want to take advantage of but don’t have the skills and expertise to do so. Nevertheless, these companies are feeling the pressure to differentiate themselves in a sea of rivals.

“Data is the true differentiator for companies, and Rackspace is in a position to help companies do just that,” Engates explained. “For many years we’ve helped [companies] get up and running on infrastructure, use Linux, take advantage of open source, and today we’re translating that heritage into services and support for AWS.”

Helping customers navigate the cloud world

Rackspace’s expertise, however, isn’t limited to AWS. As a private company helping customers manage their cloud applications, Rackspace has the freedom to partner with AWS competitors. “We’re helping companies navigate [the many choices of cloud vendors]; we give them expertise on all of these platforms,” Engates explained. He said that there is such a huge matrix of complex applications across multiple vendors, it makes it difficult to be an expert on everything; that’s where Rackspace comes in.

Often, clients come in with an opinion based on what they know, but Rackspace can help them choose which cloud and which services have sufficient maturity. It’s hard to know unless you’ve “been there and done that,” according to Engates.

“I think the word ‘multi-cloud’ is on the mind of many companies right now,” he said, adding that today, it makes sense to have multiple cloud providers, depending on what layer of the cloud customers are in. Multi-cloud is a given.

Investing in the future of public cloud

Regarding the future of Rackspace with AWS, “The public cloud is a huge investment for our company; we have put a lot of resources into this. A lot of our new marketing campaign that you will see out on the Las Vegas Strip and in news media, it’s about what we’re doing with the public cloud,” said Engates.

He stressed that AWS is a great partner, as well as the biggest cloud and the one with the most mindshare in the market, so it makes sense for Rackspace to make AWS a big focus for its future.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of AWS re:Invent. (*Disclosure: AWS and other companies sponsor some AWS re:Invent segments on SiliconANGLE Media’s theCUBE. Neither AWS nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo by SiliconANGLE