Loadingcome357

A new multi-year deal will see Slack Technologies leaning more heavily on Amazon Web Services and Amazon Chime for the operations of its cloud-based, workplace messaging and collaboration platform as they take on Microsoft Teams, Zoom Video Communications and Google Meet for more share of the enterprise market.

Under the extended partnership announced yesterday, San Francisco-based Slack and Seattle’s AWS – already Slack’s preferred cloud provider -- are promising new solutions to improve enterprise workforce collaboration, the importance of which has heightened amid the increase in remote workers resulting from stay-at-home advisories and non-essential business closures forced by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Slack, which yesterday said it added a record 90,000 new free and paid customers in the first quarter for a total of 750,000, will migrate its Slack Calls capability for voice and video calling to Amazon Chime, AWS’ unified communications service that allows users to meet, chat and place business calls.

Amazon AppFlow integration with Slack: The new Amazon AppFlow integration for Slack enables users to securely transfer data between Slack and AWS services like Amazon Simple Storage Service. All data is held on Slack’s servers, which are actually Amazon’s servers because Slack runs on AWS. This is, in part, why Microsoft put Slack on their internal list of “discouraged” apps.; not only is Slack one of Microsoft’s official competitors (and vice versa ), but Microsoft Azure is going head-to-head with Amazon Web Services. Apps may now broadcast messages to users via direct message without handling unnecessary or unsupported conversation and slash commands. Starting March 29, 2021, this feature will be default for all newly-created Slack apps. Get started by visiting the App Home tab of your existing Slack apps. Create an Amazon Lex bot. Create a Slack messaging application. Integrate the Slack application with your bot Amazon Lex. Test the integration by engaging in conversation with your Amazon Lex bot.

Slack and AWS are expanding their product integrations to help developer teams more easily communicate and manage their AWS resources in Slack channels and Amazon Chime chat rooms. The deal also will allow Slack to use AWS’ cloud infrastructure to offer data residence flexibility to its enterprise customers, letting them choose which country or region their data is stored.

AWS, meanwhile, will use Slack to help its teams better communicate and collaborate.

“The future of enterprise software will be driven by the combination of cloud services and workstream collaboration tools,” Stewart Butterfield, Slack’s cofounder and CEO, said in a statement. “Strategically partnering with AWS allows both companies to scale to meet demand and deliver enterprise-grade offerings to our customers. By integrating AWS services with Slack’s channel-based messaging platform, we’re helping teams easily and seamlessly manage their cloud infrastructure projects and launch cloud-based services without ever leaving Slack.”

AWS customers will get a “powerful new means of managing their AWS resources that will help teams collaborate and build more applications using the broadest and deepest set of cloud services,” AWS CEO Andy Jassy said in a statement.

“Together, AWS and Slack are giving developer teams the ability to collaborate and innovate faster on the front end with applications, while giving them the ability to efficiently manage their backend cloud infrastructure,” he said.

Here’s a look at the top things to know about the deal, including the AWS-Slack integrations, reaction from AWS and Microsoft partners, and a new agreement that outlines how much Slack has committed to paying AWS annually.

Slack Amazon

Slack is partnering with Amazon Web Services to integrate AWS management functions into Slack channels, among other integrations between the two.

The integrations primarily involve Slack incorporating AWS functionality and products into its system in several ways that will benefit organizations that use both Slack and AWS, the companies said.

Slack also said it 'will use a range of AWS services, including storage, compute, database, security, analytics, and machine learning, to develop new collaboration features,' while AWS' part in the deal seems limited to adopting Slack as its internal collaboration platform.

Behind-the-scenes integrations are just one element of the Slack/AWS partnership, and many elements of the new deal between the two companies will affect Slack and AWS users as well.

SEE: 10 ways to prevent developer burnout (free PDF) (TechRepublic)

What Slack and AWS users can expect

There are four major things that Slack announced as part of its new integration partnership with AWS, and each will affect enterprise Slack customers who use AWS.

The most invisible change coming as part of the partnership is Slack's migration of the infrastructure for its Slack Calls video calling and conferencing service to Amazon Chime. Slack said this migration will allow it to eliminate the overhead of maintaining its own video conferencing infrastructure and 'leverage AWS's proven infrastructure to deliver high-quality and reliable user experiences.'

Slack said the Amazon Chime migration won't have a direct effect on users, at least in the short term. Over time 'the move will allow us to add new features, such as mobile video, so users can continue to rely on Slack for secure enterprise communication.'

One thing that Slack users will definitely see is the addition of AWS Chatbot to Slack. While AWS Chatbot already exists and is actively being used, Slack said that the plan is to continue integrating the AWS Chatbot service to incorporate all of AWS' services 'to give developers the ability to collaborate with their teams to manage all of their cloud-based services without leaving Slack.'

The Slack AWS Chatbot is able to send alerts in Slack channels when errors occur, lets developers run AWS command line interface commands, and can provide reports and other diagnostic data, all inside of Slack.

Amazon AppFlow is also getting a Slack integration as part of the partnership. AppFlow in Slack will allow users to transfer data between Slack and AWS services like S3 and Redshift without having to manually download and upload data, and in coming months will support bidirectional data transfer inside of Slack channels.

Finally, Slack's Enterprise Key Management (EKM), which has operated on AWS Key Management Service since 2019, is getting additional features that will allow Slack users to automate routine key security processes through integration with Slack's workflow builder.

Slack Amazon Acquisition

Slack said its goal in the partnership is to create an alliance that allows enterprises to unlock their capabilities to innovate. 'By integrating AWS services with Slack's channel-based messaging platform, we're helping teams easily and seamlessly manage their cloud infrastructure projects and launch cloud-based services without ever leaving Slack,' said Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield.

'Together, AWS and Slack are giving developer teams the ability to collaborate and innovate faster on the front end with applications, while giving them the ability to efficiently manage their backend cloud infrastructure,' said AWS CEO Andy Jassy.

Slack Amazon App