Update July 8, 2021: New DevOps with GitHub on Microsoft Azure advanced specialization and Networking Services in Microsoft Azure advanced specialization released. More information included below.

Last year, the widespread shift to remote work triggered a landslide of digital innovation for organizations across the planet. Partners responded rapidly to create innovative solutions and services to arm customers with the tools and guidance they needed to navigate that shift, making a meaningful difference for hundreds of companies.

Now, many organizations are planning for a future that involves a hybrid workplace, where employees split their time between the office and remote work. To facilitate that transition, organizations are leaning into the cloud for the flexibility and scalability they need. Customers will continue to rely on partners to help them with their digital transformation journey to ensure they incorporate the right solutions and approaches to stay competitive in an ever-changing business landscape. This could include advice and services related to migrating to Microsoft Azure and optimizing how they adopt cloud-based technology, protecting their hybrid data hosted in on-premises or in multi-clouds, and safeguarding their servers and networks. 

Customers need to be able to easily identify the right partner with capabilities that will meet their specific needs. For services partners, achieving an advanced specialization is a powerful way to validate, differentiate and showcase your organization’s technical capabilities and experience. I’m excited to share new advanced specializations that can help you stand out in the marketplace and grow your organization as a result.

DevOps with GitHub on Microsoft Azure advanced specialization 

This advanced specialization verifies a partner’s abilities to help customers establish secure software development practices applying DevOps principles and using GitHub solutions on Azure. 

Networking Services in Microsoft Azure advanced specialization 

This advanced specialization demonstrates a partner’s ability to design, implement, operate, and optimize a customer’s network architecture, cost, and security. 

Microsoft Azure VMware Solution advanced specialization

This advanced specialization validates a partner’s capability to deploy and manage an Azure VMware Solution Private Cloud. It also showcases your ability to help customers migrate on-premises VMware workloads to run VMware natively on Azure.

AI and Machine Learning in Microsoft Azure advanced specialization 

The Microsoft Azure AI advanced specialization validates your capabilities in enabling customer adoption of AI and implementing Azure AI solutions for machine learning life cycle and AI-powered apps. 

Cloud Security advanced specialization 

This advanced specialization confirms a partner’s deep technical knowledge, proven experience, and technical capabilities related to Microsoft cloud security products and ability to offer Azure, hybrid, and multi-cloud security solutions.   

Hybrid Operations and Management with Microsoft Azure Arc advanced specialization 

The Hybrid Operations and Management with Microsoft Azure Arc advanced specialization validates your capabilities in enabling hybrid and multi-cloud scenarios using Microsoft Azure Arc—across Windows, Linux, SQL Server, Kubernetes, Azure data and AI, application services. 

Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure with Microsoft Azure Stack HCI advanced specialization

This specialization validates your capabilities in deploying Microsoft Azure Stack HCI and enabling customers to take advantage of the benefits of a hyper-converged infrastructure with Azure.

While earning an advanced specialization requires an investment of time and resources, doing so can boost your credibility and set you apart from your competitors. It can be a valuable way to highlight your capabilities, differentiate your organization and stand out with customers. With an advanced specialization, your organization can gain greater visibility in customer searches and the Microsoft partner directory, which can help your organization scale both now and in the long run. And with an Azure advanced specialization, you can also gain access to additional programs to help further expand your customer connections.

Our customers need to evolve in order to remain viable in our digital world, and the cloud is key to any organization’s ability to keep up. This creates a major opportunity for partners to help their customers make the right decisions that will set them up for long-term success. I encourage all partners to consider whether working towards one or more of these new advanced specializations, is right for your business – better positioning you to meet your customers’ sophisticated needs.  

You can review a list of all advanced specializations currently offered in the Microsoft Partner Network here.