What Red Hat's up to with partners and AWS Test Drive

The AWS Test Drive Program is a way to easily try out enterprise software. To quote AWS:

Test Drive simplifies clients’ access to complex IT environments, using the programmable infrastructures of AWS. Test Drive enables customers to rapidly deploy a private sandbox environment containing pre-configured ISV server applications that are ready to Demo and use. Test Drive labs are provided from the APN partner ecosystem, providing rapid provisioning of private IT environments. In a few minutes you can login and start using the software, following a guided tour Video and Lab Manual.

Test Drives labs have been developed by our APN Consulting and Technology partners and are provided free of charge for educational and/or demonstrational usage. Each Test Drive includes around a half a day’s use of free AWS server time for using live enterprise solution stacks, from the industry’s leading ISVs and SIs. You can return here and try any or all of the Test Drives at any time, so feel free to experiment, explore and learn.

The basic idea behind Test Drives is that you can get free limited-time access to complex enterprise software and work through a scripted use case to evaluate that software quickly. Software can then be purchased through AWS Marketplace or other channels. AWS Test Drive is a fairly new program. It was rolled out relatively quietly last year. 

Quoting Red Hat North America Channel Sales Senior Director Bob Wilson, The VAR Guy writes: "The test drives lend themselves to complex solutions, so partners that have offerings that require multiple steps, components and complexity to display to an end customers are optimal candidates," he said. "However, any solution-based offering that solves a specific customer issue would make a good test drive."

Red Hat's announcement today is for new test drives with three of our largest North American Partners. Mark Enzweiler, Red Hat's senior vice president, Global Channel Sales:

We've enjoyed working with CITYTECH, Shadow-Soft, and Vizuri to develop these initial solutions, and are eager to develop additional Test Drives with other partners. We believe these Test Drives are invaluable, they enable partners to use their expertise in pulling together complete solutions to solve complex customer challenges and illustrate how easily customers can use these tools to migrate to the cloud.