Much of that market opportunity is coming from public sector, he said, adding the first thing enterprise and public sector customers are looking for is a solution provider that can help them execute a rapid migration to the cloud.

In the last year-and-a-half, the number of partner-led migrations has increased 16-fold, and the value of those projects has doubled in each of the last two years, according to Wise.

And "customers who choose a partner for migration typically turn to that same partner to handle managed services," Wise told attendees.

Wise announced the launch of the AWS Public Sector Partner Program—an imprimatur for partners to work with government, non-profit and education customers. Over 400 current partners already qualify, he said.

Another update to the Amazon Partner Network is an integrated program with VMware to certify partners that will be implementing the VMware Cloud for AWS—a strategic alliance between the largest public and private cloud providers.  

There is a "large, rich ecosystems of partners," Wise said, who support both technologies, and those solution providers can register their interest in the program right now on the AWS partner portal.

Amazon also formally launched on Tuesday an IoT competency that it had previously unveiled to its ecosystem, and introduced a competency for partners serving the financial services industry.

Another new program update was the AWS Service Delivery Program, recognizing more than 150 partners who specialize in implementing specific AWS platforms, like Lambda or Redshift.

AWS also reached across the company to Amazon's Alexa division, creating a program for partners to deliver services around the personal assistant that powers the Amazon Echo home appliance.

Amazon's customers and partners have expressed a "deep desire to integrate Alexa and voice solutions with other products and solutions," Wise said.