We’re delighted to start 2023 with a new Microsoft Solutions Partner designation for Digital & App Innovation (Azure). Our latest accreditation further demonstrates our proven track record in digital innovation and delivering continued customer successes that meet Microsoft’s rigorous certification standards.

This latest solution partner programme certificate brings our total number of Microsoft Solutions Partner designations up to five. We’re immensely proud of the Atech team’s hard work developing superior capabilities as a pure-play Microsoft CSP (cloud service provider). Most notably, our efforts in going above and beyond for clients and keeping up-to-date with the latest Microsoft solutions and best practice..

In this article, we’ll explore in more detail what the Digital & Application Innovation certification involves explicitly and how it can help you push your business forward.

What is a Microsoft Digital & App Innovation Solutions Partner?

Our Digital & App Innovation accreditation is within Azure – Microsoft’s dedicated cloud computing platform. Here, users can choose from a number of services to develop and manage new applications to meet their organisational goals.

In simple terms, this means that as a Microsoft Solution Partner for Digital & App Innovation (Azure), we can help customers build and modernise their applications. The word ‘innovation’ is key to this qualification’s weight in bolstering modern business practices. Specifically, it refers to the certificate holder’s ability to innovate Azure-based applications and provide end users with a cutting-edge cloud-native experience that exceeds their expectations.

To illustrate, customers can harness data-driven engines, machine learning (ML), and Internet of Things (IoT) devices to provide in-depth customer insights through the right Azure service provider. From there, captured data can be utilised to enable employees to do their best work and provide their customers with the best service levels.

Additional information on Microsoft Solution Designation updates

Last year, Microsoft overhauled its accreditation programme to keep up with the evolving demands of the modern workplace. You can read more about the solution partner programme changes here. However, in short, Gold and Silver certificates have been phased out in favour of an adjusted set of (arguably) higher qualification standards. Criteria that prove applicants’ abilities to deliver improved outcomes for both customers and internal MSP teams.

Towards the end of last year, Atech gained Microsoft Solutions Partner designations for the following:

• Microsoft Solutions Partner for Security
• Microsoft Solutions Partner for Infrastructure (Azure)
• Microsoft Solutions Partner for Modern Work
• Microsoft Solutions Partner for Data and AI (Azure)
• Microsoft Advanced Specialization in Identity and Access Management
• Microsoft Advanced Specialization in Threat Protection
• Microsoft Advanced Specialization in Windows Server and SQL Server Migration
• Microsoft Advanced Specialization in Azure Virtual desktop (AVD)

You can read more about our new designations and how we achieved them here.

How Atech achieved Digital & App Innovation Solutions Partner status

Our clients choose to work with us rather than competitor third-party CSPs because our achievements establish us as a credible expert in Azure. The Microsoft certifications also give us access to additional benefits and tooling, such as test and dev credits for customer cloud environments, enabling our clients to do more.

Under Microsoft’s previous certification processes, we earned Gold Partner status for Digital & App Innovation for Azure (as well as eight other domains). This qualification went some of the way in assuring that we could apply and successfully gain the new Microsoft Solutions Partner delegation. However, we also had to meet the following criteria:

• Provide ample evidence of previous customer deployment for specific Azure workloads.
• Train the required number of team members in Azure competencies.
• Pass a live audit from an independent source, examining our abilities to provide robust and replicable processes that ensure consistent customer outcomes.
• Demonstrate our capabilities in creating ‘Azure landing zones’ in alignment with Microsoft’s best practices.
• Prove our skills in creating well-orchestrated workloads in Azure design.

Why this digital innovation qualification in Azure matters to our customers

As a cloud-native platform, Azure enables companies to achieve greater resiliency and develop apps faster. Our expertise in this area includes the ability to migrate and deploy production web application workloads, apply DevOps, and effectively manage app services in Azure.

The latest MS qualification also assures customers that we are proficient in managing production workloads in the cloud with the help of containers and managing hosted Kubernetes environments in Azure. Furthermore, the certificate demonstrates our skills in implementing secure DevOps practices and driving DevOps adoption using Azure and GitHub.

For our customers, this means that, with our help, you can drive better business outcomes within the right environment, deploy the best tools, and innovate faster – all while reducing operations costs. We can help you build and modernise your cloud-native apps and transform how your organisation codes, collaborates, and ships your software.

Finally, the new Microsoft Solutions Partner delegation highlights our commitment to learning and development within our team and demonstrates how pivotal our people are to Atech and your organisation’s success.

Build an end-to-end platform for digital innovation with Atech

Take your business to the next level through cloud application innovation, and differentiate your service output to better align with customer expectations.

Atech is the perfect partner in driving better business outcomes. We can assist you in building flexible customer experiences, improve your collaborative capabilities and adapt your processes to allow you to explore and scale new business models.

We can guide you toward your next growth stage with Azure client innovation ecosystems. So, if you want to learn more about modernising and managing applications in the cloud, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with one of Azure Solutions Architects.