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Certification of integrators

Introduction​

The purpose of this document is to describe a concept for how implementation partners can obtain certification as SCS integrators. In essence, this certificate is intended to express that an organization has sufficient technical knowledge and experience to provide technical support to companies using SCS. For this purpose, two essential criteria are defined that must be fulfilled. In addition, there are a few other criteria that can be taken into account in favor of certification.

Motivation​

Regulations​

The certificates are awarded for the period of one year. The certification is done either by the Forum SCS-Standards or an attestation body nominated by the forum.

Certificates​

  • Certified SCS KaaS Integrator: SCS KaaS (Kubernetes as a Service) implementation partner
  • Certified SCS IaaS Integrator: SCS IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) implementation partner

Criteria​

Criteria for certification, proof of experience in setting up, operating and supporting SCS-compliant environments:

The organization to be certified needs to satisfy one of the following requirements

a) have successfully brought at least two SCS-compliant environments of a third party (customer) into production in the last 12 months. The two environments must fulfill at least the Certified SCS-compatible IaaS or Certified SCS-compatible KaaS scope.

or

b) actively manage at least two such environments of third parties (customers) at the time the certificate is issued. These environments must have been managed at least for a year at the time of attestation.

or

c) have been operating a Certified SCS-compatible IaaS public cloud with at least two regions or at least three availability zones for more than one year.

Additional favorable criteria for certification​

SCS is an open source community project with the goal of enabling digital sovereignty. As such, the commitment and support of this mission should be recognized and promoted beyond technical competence. To this end, the following aspects can be taken into account for certification or compensate for any criteria that are not fully met (see above):

The implementation partners should work towards ensuring that digital sovereignty is implemented in accordance with the SCS definition (Standards, Open Software, OpenOperations). This is expressed in a way that, in addition to the technology used to build environments (not necessarily only SCS environments), knowledge and experience in SCS standards compliance (SCS-compatible IaaS and KaaS) is also available and that environments built by this organization have already been configured in accordance with the standards and are listed on the SCS compliance list.

The implementation partners should work towards ensuring that the cloud environments they set up and/or manage are also officially visible as SCS clouds, thereby strengthening the SCS brand.

Attestation​

The audit for the certification of an implementation partner is carried out by a person appointed by the Forum SCS-Standards. The person will assess and, if necessary, obtain evidence from the organization to be certified as to whether and to what extent the criteria have been met.

If one of the above criteria is not met, the forum can be requested to certify the candidate nevertheless. This must be decided by unanimous vote in the forum, two third of all eligible votes must be present. Abstentions are not counted as votes against.