BELLEVUE, Wash., March 1, 2021 – Core Scientific, a leading infrastructure and software solutions provider for artificial intelligence and blockchain that is led by CEO Kevin Turner, the former COO of Microsoft, announced today that it has achieved Amazon Web Services (AWS) High Performance Computing (HPC) Competency status. This designation recognizes that Core Scientific has demonstrated deep experience helping customers optimize their HPC workloads for performance and efficiency using AWS’s elastic and scalable cloud infrastructure.

AWS launched the AWS HPC Competency to help customers easily and confidently engage highly specialized AWS Partners that provide technology offerings for faster innovation, better agility, and flexibility in areas such as genomics, computational chemistry, financial risk modeling, computer aided engineering, as well as emerging applications such as deep learning, and autonomous driving. The AWS HPC Competency takes on the heavy lifting of identifying and validating industry leaders with proven customer success and technical proficiency.

Achieving the AWS HPC Competency differentiates Core Scientific as an AWS Partner with deep domain expertise in one or more of the following categories: Application, HPC Management, and Foundational Technology.

“Core Scientific is humbled to be one of the first AWS Partners to achieve AWS HPC Competency status,” said Ian Ferreira, Core Scientific Chief Product Officer of Artificial Intelligence. “Our customers come from an array of important, game-changing industries and backgrounds. By combining the Core Scientific Plexus HPC-Ops software stack with AWS HPC infrastructure, customers can seamlessly run very large parallel workloads”

AWS is enabling scalable, flexible, and cost-effective solutions from startups to global enterprises. To support the seamless integration and deployment of these solutions, AWS established the AWS Competency Program to help customers identify Consulting and Technology AWS Partners with deep industry experience and expertise.

Core Scientific’s Plexus is a hybrid-cloud platform that combines AWS with existing on-premises resources customers may own. With a single-pane-of-glass, Plexus provides a consistent workflow across infrastructure, reducing the need to retrain end-users.

Plexus for HPC-ops control plane provides turn-key integration with AWS compute services. This enables customers to manage, orchestrate and run HPC workloads backed by enhanced AWS computing infrastructure. Core Scientific’s fine-grained-scheduler supports the capability to run embarrassingly parallel workloads over coarse-grained compute, therefore maximizing customer ROI.

Core Scientific

Core Scientific equips and enables data scientists to take on the world’s most advanced AI challenges. Through delivery of high-end leading-edge AI hardware infrastructure in a near-cloud environment and delivering software tooling to streamline AI workflows, Core Scientific delivers the ease of public cloud with benefits of colocation.

TORONTO, Nov. 25, 2020 /PRNewswire/ – Converge Technology Solutions Corp. (“Converge” or “the Company”) (TSXV:CTS)(FSE:0ZB) (OTCQX:CTSDF) a national platform of regionally focused Hybrid IT solution providers in the U.S. and Canada, announced today that it has successfully achieved the Cloud Management and Automation VMware Master Services Competency. This competency demonstrates that Converge is committed to helping organizations accelerate their digital transformations by leveraging their validated services delivery capabilities around advanced VMware technologies. As a VMware Principal Partner in Canada, Converge is the first Canadian VMware partner to achieve four Master level competencies and the first Canadian VMware partner to achieve the Cloud Management and Automation Master Service Competency.

“It is incredible to be highlighted as the first Canadian company to attain the Cloud Management and Automation Master Competency, and even greater to be the first Canadian Company to achieve four VMware Master Service Competencies. We couldn’t be prouder of our organization,” said Greg Berard, President of Converge. “Our team is undeniably dedicated to bringing the best technologies and services to our customers, and this is an affirmation of our determination, and unique position in achieving just that.”

“VMware is pleased to recognize Converge for achieving a Cloud Management and Automation Master Services Competency. This accomplishment shows customers that partners such as Converge are dedicated, invested, and have validated expertise in advanced VMware technologies,” said Sandy Hogan, SVP of Worldwide Commercial and Partner Sales, VMware. “We value Converge as a top Canadian VMware partner, and appreciate its efforts in achieving this VMware distinction as Converge works to increase its service delivery capabilities.”

VMware Master Services Competencies are designed to help partners demonstrate customer-centric solutions and technical proficiency, with proven success and expertise in a specialized area of business. These competencies also allow partners to differentiate in six specific solution areas.

VMware partners can achieve VMware Master Services Competencies in:

Cloud Management and Automation – Designates expertise in delivery of VMware Cloud Management and Automation solutions and services with deep understanding and execution of cloud management design principles and methodologies.

Cloud Native – Designates partner organizational expertise to run and manage VMware Modern Application solutions. Achieving this competency validates partners’ deep understanding of Kubernetes core concepts and proficiency in networking, security and application lifecycle management to ensure the continuous delivery of applications on Kubernetes-based platforms.

Data Center Virtualization – Designates expertise in delivery of VMware vSphere environments and digital infrastructure services with deep understanding of and execution in Data Center Virtualization design principles and methodologies.

Digital Workspace – Designates partner organizational expertise to design, deliver and support the ongoing management of customer apps, data and virtual desktop solutions whether on-premise or cloud delivered. Achieving this competency validates partners’ deep understanding and execution on VMware Horizon and VMware Workspace ONE end-user computing solutions.

Network Virtualization – Designates expertise in the delivery of VMware NSX environments and services with deployment and optimization of NSX environment capabilities.

VMware Cloud on AWS – Designates expertise in the delivery of hybrid cloud solutions based on VMware Cloud on AWS. This service provides an operationally consistent and familiar way to run, manage and secure applications in a hybrid IT environment.
VMware Partner Connect empowers partners with flexibility to meet customers’ needs, making VMware technologies and services opportunities more accessible. Partners now have an enhanced experience that delivers simplicity, choice and innovation, and recognizes and rewards partners based on the value they bring to customers.

Converge Technology Solutions Corp. is a North American IT Solution Provider focused on delivering industry leading solutions and services. Converge’s regional sales and services organizations deliver advanced analytics, cloud, cybersecurity, and managed services offerings to clients across various industries. The Company supports these solutions with talent expertise and digital infrastructure offerings across all major IT vendors in the marketplace. This multi-faceted approach enables Converge to address the unique business and technology requirements for all clients in the public and private sectors

The designation certifies 15 channel players as experts in addressing customers’ security and compliance issues.

Amazon Web Services is helping end users handle the ever-harder security and compliance requirements tied to endpoints, applications and data, especially as more people work outside of a physical office, act as contractors and as organizations pursue digital transformation.

To address the challenges, the cloud giant has certified the first channel partners, 15 total, throughout the world as experts in the new AWS End User Computing Competency. In short, the associated solutions allow end users to access company resources from anywhere.

The partners “can support your company’s need to provision, protect and get intelligence from endpoint devices, end-user apps and data on AWS,” Renata Melnyk, senior partner program manager at AWS, wrote in a blog.

Earning the AWS Competency designation was not easy. The 15 partners underwent “rigorous validation,” Melnyk wrote, as well as assessments of the security, performance and reliability of their AWS offerings and practices. Validation included:

• A minimum of four unique, in-depth AWS case studies specific to completed End User Computing technology projects.
• Demonstrated domain expertise in End User Computing technologies and workloads, complete with “innovative solutions” running on AWS.
• At least 12 months’ worth of blog posts, videos, press articles, and so on, available to the public.
• Documented access management strategy, including but not limited to: IAM users, symmetric access keys, asymmetric X.509 certificates, console passwords, and hardware or virtual multifactor authentication devices.
• Evidence of stringent data and security protections.
• Demonstrations of capabilities, processes, customer examples.

All that rigor proves the certified partners can enable a range of benefits. Alscient, a U.K.-based integrator, positions its AWS End User Computing Competency as facilitating a standardized desktop build that “can be securely provisioned in minutes, reducing corporate risk to common web threats.”

From there, a cloud-hosted platform hosts user management, while secure desktop access comes with options to restrict accesses as needed; for example, by network IPs and Active Directory domains, the company explains on its website.

New York-based Innovation Solutions also holds the AWS End User Computing Competency designation.

“Our singular focus is to enable every one of our customers to become a technology company,” said Justin Copie, Innovative Solutions CEO said in a press release. “Our hope is to enable growth, not only within our own business, but across technology companies in the region. If we can help raise the tide, then all boats rise. Together we win.”

Olikka, an Australian systems integrator, agreed.

“This latest achievement further demonstrates AWS’ commitment to their partners and, most importantly, customers,” said Ross Gangemi, solutions director for Olikka.

In specific, the 15 partners with the End User Computing Competency help customers with strategy, professional services, infrastructure management, repeatable intellectual property, and optimization of end-user computing technologies on AWS, Melnyk noted.

“When you deploy End User Computing solutions on AWS, you can maintain security over your data, improve user productivity, simplify IT operations and enable builders to be more innovative,” she wrote. “End User Computing services on AWS include Amazon WorkSpaces, Amazon AppStream 2.0, Amazon WorkDocs and Amazon WorkLink.”

She went on to describe the offerings as those that provide a resource brokering mechanism (control plane), visualization/remote display protocol, and an application execution environment, with either the control plane and/or application execution environment running on AWS. Along the way, the certified partners are tasked with adhering to AWS best practices for building cloud infrastructure.

The new AWS End User Computing Competency Advanced and Premier Consulting Partners are: Alscient Limited, API Systems, BlazeClan Technologies, CloudHesive, CMD Solutions, Consegna, EagleDream, Innovative Solutions, Nuvens, Olikka, Privo, Rebura, RedNight, Serverworks and SynchroNet.