The AWS Cloud Management Tools Competency Checklist | nOps

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The AWS Cloud Management Tools Competency Checklist

AWS created the Cloud Management Tools (CMT) Competency Program to recognize and validate AWS Partners who have demonstrated proficiency in delivering first-class cloud management tools.

To pass the program vetting process, ISVs must show that their solutions are capable of helping AWS users reap the benefits of their cloud adoption strategy while maintaining recommended governance, security, compliance, and cost-efficiency best practices. Customers who eventually chose one of the listed Partners can rest assured that they’re getting consumer-driven solutions that successfully meet all their technical needs.

Mapping AWS Cloud Management Tools Competency Technology Partner Validation Checklist

The CMT Competency classifies suitable cloud management solutions into two specialized areas: Cloud Governance and Resource & Cost Optimization. Each category comes with special requirements which interested partners must fulfill before they become certified.

As an AWS Cloud Management Tools Competency Partner, nOps provides you with an excellent suite of tools that can help you meet the stated requirements.

This mapping is based on the latest Technology Partner Validation Checklist SaaS 3.2 version released in August 2021.

Cloud Management Tools Solution Features

The following requirements are applicable to all AWS Partner applications.

CMT-001 AWS Cloud Management Tools Competency category fit

The AWS Partner solution meets the definition of the category specified in the application. See the **AWS Cloud Management Tools Definition and Competency Categories** for category definitions.

How nOps Helps

nOps meets both specified categories: Cloud Governance and Resource & Cost Optimization

CMT-002 Solution supports the use of AWS Organizations to discover and access AWS accounts.

How nOps Helps

nOps supports and recommends that users use AWS Organizations. Not only does our automatic setup wizard use AWS Organizations for setting your account, but we also provide tools that validate AWS recommended best practices across the entire AWS Organizations setup.

CMT-003 Solution provides aggregated analysis or findings across multiple accounts.

How nOps Helps

nOps provides a detailed, comprehensive analysis giving you high-level visibility across multiple accounts.

CMT-004 Solution provides AWS CloudFormation templates for provisioning the necessary cross-account IAM roles.

How nOps Helps

nOps provides an AWS CloudFormation template in configuring access to resources leveraging AWS sophisticated security system for Identity and Access Management (IAM).

CMT-005 Solution supports AWS CloudFormation stack sets for managing roles across multiple accounts.

How nOps Helps

nOps supports the usage of AWS CloudFormation stack in provisioning secure IAM roles.

CMT-006 Solution supports customers with 50+ accounts and 2000+ resources.

The solution must be capable of supporting large customer deployments.

Evidence must be in the form of either a customer example with specific details on the number of active accounts and resources managed, or details of a partner-executed load test simulating such an environment.

How nOps Helps

nOps is capable of supporting AWS users with several AWS accounts and large deployments.

Cloud Governance

The following requirements apply to all solutions that have identified as a Cloud Governance solution.

CMTCG-001 Solution provides preventive or detective controls to enforce customer-defined policies.

Solution provides preventive or detective controls to enforce customer-defined policies. These policies focus on operational best practices, compliance and security.

How nOps Helps

nOps helps customers enforce desired goals by proactively auto-detecting compliance gaps in the implementation of best practices.

CMTCG-002 Solution provides an out of box library of best practice rules that evaluate resource configuration.

Solution provides an out of box library of best practice rules that evaluate resource configuration. It also provides customers an ability to define their own rules/policies based on their needs.

How nOps Helps

Our AI-powered engine applies our predefined and customizable ruleset in intelligently defining and evaluating resources’ configurations. Users can tweak these evaluations to their needs.

CMTCG-003 Solution provides automated notification and remediation of policy violations.

Solution provides automated notification and remediation of policy violations. Automated remediation actions can require human approval or initiation via a “one click” interface. Use of AWS Systems Manager Automation is a best practice.

How nOps Helps

nOps provides near real-time, continuous notifications of risks and violations. We also offer a slick “one click” UI allowing users to effect recommended remediation actions.

CMTCG-004 Solution must provide assessment and reporting on at least Amazon EC2, Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon RDS.

Solution must provide assessment and reporting on at least Amazon EC2, Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon RDS, Amazon S3, AWS IAM, Amazon VPC, Amazon API Gateway, Amazon CloudFront, Amazon EBS, Amazon Redshift, AWS Auto Scaling, and Amazon CloudTrail.

How nOps Helps

nOps Cloud Inventory tool provides you with a list of resources configured by the specified AWS services. We also provide tools that check for and report misconfigurations.

CMTCG-005 Solution does not prevent customers from using the full range and functionality of all AWS services.

Solutions implementing preventive controls that block provisioning of resources must not abstract or limit the AWS APIs available to customers by default. Solutions that deploy an agent or other means of collector must demonstrate the need and why direct integration with AWS does not meet that need.

How nOps Helps

nOps doesn’t implement preventative controls. Instead, we partner with AWS in providing tools that help users get the best out of their provisioned AWS infrastructure.

CMTCG-006 Solution supports variable frequency of policy checks and configuration scans based on control risk.

How nOps Helps

nOps provides continuous monitoring of the health of your AWS infrastructure providing users with detailed insights on the severity of discovered issues. Users can also build their custom dashboard to create, manage and focus on key nOps configuration rules that are important to them. They can also commission an infrastructure scan via a Well-Architected Framework Review, for example.

CMTCG-007 Solution supports the ingestion of AWS CloudTrail logs to evaluate and report on.

Solution supports the ingestion of AWS CloudTrail logs to evaluate and report on metadata, including the responsible principal, for non-compliant configuration changes.

How nOps Helps

nOps supports the ingestion of CloudTrail logs. Our sophisticated Cloud Trail changes section analyzes the CloudTrail events/logs to find non-compliant configuration changes and highlight their impact quickly.

CMTCG-008 Solution integrates with external tools to support customers change management or.

Solution integrates with external tools to support customers change management or approval process for implementing recommendations. AWS Partner must demonstrate how a violation is identified, action requested, approved, implemented and closed.

How nOps Helps

nOps provides integration with vital third-party tools (such as AWS Service Catalog and JIRA) necessary in streamlining our users’ remediation and change management process. We also have an excellent onboarding process that walks users through our system.

Cost and Resource Optimization

The following requirements apply to all solutions that have identified as a Cost and Resource Optimization solution.

CMTCRO-001 Solution must satisfy the requirements of at least two (2) of the feature sets defined below.

In addition to the common segment requirements defined above, each Cost and Resource Optimization solution must meet all of the requirements in at least two of the following feature sets:

Cost visibility, reporting, and allocations
Rightsizing, elasticity, and decommissioning underutilized resources
Reserved instance management or recommendations for resource commitments in exchange for discounts
Spot instance management

How nOps Helps

We’re glad to inform you that nOps provides powerful tools that satisfy the listed feature sets.

Cost visibility, Reporting, and Allocations

A solution must meet all of the following requirements in order for this feature set to count toward the CMTCRO-001 requirement.

CMTCV-001 Solution supports filtering and grouping all cost visibility, reporting, and allocation by organization.

Solution supports filtering and grouping all cost visibility, reporting, and allocation by organization, account, resource type, tag, and AWS Region.

How nOps Helps

nOps’ comprehensive cost control dashboard provides drill-down visibility that satisfies all specified conditions.

CMTCV-002 Solution supports customer-defined groupings for reports based on multiple filter dimensions.

How nOps Helps

nOps equips customers with the necessary tools to filter and define specific metrics for their reports.

CMTCV-003 Solution provides consolidated performance reporting across cost, utilization, and RI management.

How nOps Helps

We provide a comprehensive dashboard providing detailed insights across the specified areas.

CMTCV-004 Solution provides historical cost trend analysis based on at least 6 months of historical data.

How nOps Helps

nOps provides historical cost trend analysis.

CMTCV-005 Solution provides predictive cost estimates for month/quarter/year via.

Solution provides predictive cost estimates for month/quarter/year via linear regression or other modeling techniques.

How nOps Helps

nOps provides 30-day recommendations based on our Machine-Learning historical cost trend analysis.

CMTCV-006 Solution reports spend amortization of reserved instances.

How nOps Helps

n/a

CMTCV-007 Solution reports allow customers to set budgets and reports actual vs. budgeted spend.

How nOps Helps

nOps allow customers to set budgets and provides an intuitive display that reports actual vs. budgeted spend.

CMTCV-008 Solution sends alerts based on budget overruns. Alerts are sent via email and.

Solution sends alerts based on budget overruns. Alerts are sent via email and at least one additional 3rd party tool (e.g. ITSM solution, monitoring platform, or chat application).

How nOps Helps

Customers can receive budget overruns alerts via email and Slack

CMTCV-009 Solution generates chargeback invoices with the ability to apply uplift fees based on accounts and tags.

How nOps Helps

nOps Chargebacks center satisfies the specified requirements

CMTCV-010 Solution supports container-level cost allocation.

How nOps Helps

Our Container Cost Tool satisfies the specified condition.

Right Sizing, Elasticity, and Decommissioning Underutilized Resources

A solution must meet all of the following requirements in order for this feature set to count toward the CMTCRO-001 requirement.

CMTRS-001 Solution provides aggregate scorecard of cost savings opportunities and recommendations.

How nOps Helps

nOps Cost Control dashboard proves a comprehensive view of discovered gaps/opportunities along with their appropriate recommendations.

CMTRS-002 Solution provides instance utilization recommendations.

Solution identifies Amazon EC2 instances that are not fully utilized and provides recommendations based on all of the following factors:

CPU utilization
Network I/O
Disk I/O
Memory utilization

How nOps Helps

nOps rules check for and list underutilized EC2 instances along with appropriate recommendations.

CMTRS-003 Solution provides a first party agent or integration with third party tool for collecting.

Solution provides a first party agent or integration with third party tool for collecting memory utilization statistics of running instances.

How nOps Helps

nOps checks the average memory utilization for an Amazon EC2 instance and provides appropriate memory-intensive related recommendations.

CMTRS-004 Solution makes instance type recommendations across available instance families. All instance.

Solution makes instance type recommendations across available instance families. All instance families released more than 90 days from the date of application must be supported.

How nOps Helps

nOps provides recommendations for various supported EC2 instance types.

CMTRS-005 Solution provides mechanism to implement proposed instance type changes on behalf of the user.

Solution provides mechanism to implement proposed instance type changes on behalf of the user via a one-click or similar remediation process.

How nOps Helps

n/a

CMTRS-006 Solution allows users to set CPU utilization targets or thresholds that are incorporated.

Solution allows users to set CPU utilization targets or thresholds that are incorporated into right-sizing recommendations.

How nOps Helps

n/a

CMTRS-007 Solution provides elasticity and scheduling recommendations for both EC2 and RDS based on historical.

Solution provides elasticity and scheduling recommendations for both EC2 and RDS based on historical usage.

How nOps Helps

n/a

CMTRS-008 Solution provides a mechanism to implement proposed instance scheduling on behalf of user via.

Solution provides a mechanism to implement proposed instance scheduling on behalf of user via one-click or similar interface.

How nOps Helps

n/a

CMTRS-009 Solution identifies underutilized resources. Solution identifies and provides a mechanism to decommission

Solution identifies underutilized resources. Solution identifies and provides a mechanism to decommission via one-click or similar interface underutilized resources in each of the following categories:

Unattached elastic IPs
Unattached EBS volumes
Load balancers that are idle or do not have targets attached
Idle Amazon EC2 instances
Idle Amazon RDS databases
Idle Amazon Redshift clusters
Incomplete Amazon S3 multi-part upload

How nOps Helps

nOps platform identifies underutilized AWS resources and provides a UI for performing specified recommendations.

CMTRS-010 Solution provides user configurable policies for identifying and removing EBS snapshots.

How nOps Helps

n/a

Reserved Instance (RI) Management

A solution must meet all of the following requirements in order for this feature set to count toward the CMTCRO-001 requirement.

CMTRI-001 Solution reports RI utilization in hourly, daily, and monthly intervals.

How nOps Helps

nOps Reserved Instances Management dashboard satisfies this requirement.

CMTRI-002 Solution supports RI analysis across consolidated billing families where RIs are purchased.

Solution supports RI analysis across consolidated billing families where RIs are purchased and utilized across multiple disparate AWS accounts.

How nOps Helps

The RI management dashboard provides a consolidated, 360 view of all your RI spends and savings across all AWS accounts.

CMTRI-003 Solution provides RI recommendations based on historical usage patterns.

How nOps Helps

Our RI AI engine analyzes usage patterns and makes continuous 24/7 recommendations based on that.

CMTRI-004 Solution provides reporting on historical RI purchases and utilization.

How nOps Helps

nOps Reserved Instances Management dashboard satisfies this requirement.

CMTRI-005 Solution supports all RI types (standard, convertible, regional, zonal)

How nOps Helps

nOps Reserved Instances Management dashboard satisfies this requirement.

CMTRI-006 Solution provides recommendations on exchanges of convertible RI inventory.

How nOps Helps

nOps Reserved Instances Management dashboard satisfies this requirement.

CMTRI-007 Solution provides a mechanism to execute RI purchase or conversion recommendations.

Solution provides a mechanism to execute RI purchase or conversion recommendations on the user’s behalf via a one-click or similar interface.

How nOps Helps

We provide real-time, automatic adjustments based on recommendations influenced by our AI engine findings.

CMTRI-008 Solution allows users to set a reservation budget if automated RI purchasing/exchanges.

How nOps Helps

nOps Reserved Instances Management dashboard satisfies this requirement.

Spot Instance Management

A solution must meet all of the following requirements in order for this feature set to count toward the CMTCRO-001 requirement.

CMTSPT-001 Solution provides alerting on spot pricing changes.

How nOps Helps

n/a

CMTSPT-002 Solution leverages at least 6 months of historical data spot pricing data for analysis and recommendations.

How nOps Helps

nOps Spot Advisor satisfies this requirement.

CMTSPT-003 Solution uses predictive analytics to inform instance type recommendations and selection.

How nOps Helps

nOps Spot Advisor provides recommendations based on our Machine-Learning based analysis of instances utilization patterns.

CMTSPT-004 Solution supports user configurable budgets for spot workloads.

How nOps Helps

n/a

CMTSPT-005 Solution automatically launches spot instances and optimizes instance type selection based.

Solution automatically launches spot instances and optimizes instance type selection based on current pricing and user configurable workload parameters.

How nOps Helps

n/a

CMTSPT-006 Solution supports defined duration spot instances.

How nOps Helps

n/a

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