Salesforce, AWS plot more private connections, integration points

Salesforce and Amazon Web Services outlined new integrations that will give customers more private connection and data sharing options.

For Salesforce, AWS is its preferred infrastructure provider and a way to more efficiently expand globally. Salesforce runs most of its public cloud workloads on AWS and is live in Australia and Canada. Salesforce plans to run Heroku, Quip and Marketing Cloud Social Studio on AWS too.

The two companies, which first announced a partnership in 2016, are also complementary from a go-to-market perspective. In addition, Salesforce and Amazon both have a mutual interest in moving away from Oracle databases.

Salesforce's update on the AWS partnership comes as the company launches its Customer 360 effort. The integrations, announced at Salesforce's Dreamforce conference, include:

• AWS PrivateLink integration with Salesforce APIs. The gist of this integration evolves around giving AWS developers a private endpoint to access services. Salesforce APIs will be within Amazon Virtual Private Clouds for analytics, machine learning and customer data crunching.
• AWS Integration with Salesforce Platform Events. Events, essentially automated processes that are triggered under certain conditions, will be interoperable on AWS and Salesforce. The companies said they will enable customers to subscribe to Salesforce Platform Events in AWS so actions can be triggered. Once a process is triggered the results in AWS will be published back to Salesforce. This integration will be available in 2019.
• Amazon Connect for Salesforce Service Cloud. Amazon Connect, designed as a cloud base contact center, will integrate customer workflows with Service Cloud on interactive voice response, automated call distributor and CRM. The integration points may include support for bots and AI. Amazon Connect for Salesforce Service Cloud is now available.