replace exception rule by Incubator status

[depressiveRobot]

Resolves #1024

There are still some open questions:

• How to allow implementation partners that don't want to offer an own public environment (criteria c) to get a certification?
  • current idea is v3 of the procedural (or a new procedural) which introduces another stage of certification, like "Certified SCS Engineer/Consultant/Trainer"
• How do we want to handle joint references? (e.g. two or more partners have jointly set up SCS environments or manage them together)
• How to prove that the environment is not "scripted only"?
  • maybe some kind of plausibility checks and statistics (customers, applications, workloads, stress tests etc.)
  • mainly affects KaaS environments

Show differences between v1 and v2:

Procedural:

git diff --no-index Standards/scs-0007-v1-certification-integrators.md Standards/scs-0007-v2-certification-integrators.md

Supplement:

git diff --no-index Standards/scs-0007-w1-certification-integrators-implementation-notes.md Standards/scs-0007-w2-certification-integrators-implementation-notes.md

[mbuechse]

In my mind, the Incubator status needs to be implemented differently, namely, as a dedicated kind of certificate (maybe two, one for each layer), to be listed in the Section "Certificates".

Also and probably independent of my previous point, I think the Section "Criteria" should be rephrased. Something along the lines of:

The partner should achieve at least two points (for Integrator) or one point (for Apprentice) according to the following system:

• one point for each SCS-compliant environment of a third party successfully brought into production in the last 12 months, where the environment must fulfill at least ...
• one point for each SCS-compliant environment of a third party actively being managed by the applicant,
• etc. pp

This way, we can allow a mixture of what is currently a, b, and c.

[fkr]

Very good point. I always had in mind that is a separate Certificate, in order not to add to any confusion. I like the idea with the points.

[fkr]

In addition to @mbuechse 's comment: With the points we get rid of the voting, since I see the voting as one of the primary culprits of the original proposal as well. The decision should lie in the attestation body and with the proposed variant upon points, this would work nicely.

[mbuechse]

I tried to incorporate what we had discussed in the SIG. I think the name "Incubator" should be reconsidered.

[fkr]

I tried to incorporate what we had discussed in the SIG. I think the name "Incubator" should be reconsidered.

i concur. Reading it like "SCS-Certified IaaS Incubator" does not really make sense. Apprentice ;)

• SCS-certified IaaS Associate?
• SCS-certified IaaS Mentee?
• SCS-certified IaaS Protégé?

[depressiveRobot]

Many thanks to both of you, especially @mbuechse for incorporating what was discussed in the SIG. Based on this, I tried to make further adjustments:

• definition of terms: "implementation partner" and "applicant"
• wording "scoring system" to get rid of "criteria"

My two cents for a better name than "Incubator":

• "Associate" does not clearly express to me that the organization is not yet an integrator
• "Mentee", "Protege" and "Apprentice", "Trainee", "Candidate", "Recriut", "Novice": we can name it like we want, however, with all of them it is not clear to me that the certificate is about becoming a fully-fledged integrator.
• That's why I have the idea of "SCS-certified IaaS Bronze Integrator". This way we could also reflect the score in the certificate name:
  • two points: "SCS-certified IaaS Bronze Integrator"
  • four points: "SCS-certified IaaS Silver Integrator"
  • six or more points: "SCS-certified IaaS Gold Integrator"

The actual certification process could be described as implementation hints in the Supplement w2. Also with the additions proposed in the SIG, with the three stages of "self-assessment", "codified checks" and "audit". However, this would still require specific plausibility checks and statistics.

[fkr]

Couple of thoughts:

By having several levels of SCS-Certified IaaS it becomes more complex to comprehend for outsiders, thats why I kinda liked the different naming. “SCS-certified IaaS Integrator” is simple and easily understood. But maybe this discussion / the course of discussion since September shows that we need this added "complexity" in order to address the needs adequately.

The second thought: we just certified four companies with ‘SCS-certified IaaS Integrator’ and renaming this would mean that this has to be adjusted as well.

[mbuechse]

We can say that "Silver" (and above) MAY be omitted, so as to remain backwards-compatible.

[depressiveRobot]

I tried to incorporate our latest proposal regarding certificate levels and the points mentioned in the last SIG Std/Cert on 2025-12-02.

[depressiveRobot]

Regarding the open question "How to allow implementation partners who are very knowledgeable, but will never meet the requirements of Integrator to become certified?"

Version 2 of this standard intentionally does not consider this question. It should rather be a separate new standard like "Certified SCS Consultant".

The other two open issues are addressed in the current draft, see supplement.

[depressiveRobot]

During the presentation at the Forum SCS-Standards regular call on 2025-12-12 the issue was raised that the current naming system using certificate levels (aka "Certified SCS IaaS Bronze Integrator") is too long:

These were the suggestion so far:

• Certified SCS IaaS Bronze Integrator
• Certified SCS IaaS Integrator with a label/stamp "Incubator"/"Incubator status"
• Certified SCS IaaS Incubator (relation to Integrator missing)
• SCS-certified IaaS ...
  • Associate, Mentee, Protege, Trainee, Candidate, Recriut, Novice
  • with all of them it is not clear that the certificate is about becoming a fully-fledged SCS Integrator

What we are looking for: A shorter name/term that clearly expresses that it is an entry-level/lower level certification to the "normal" SCS Integrator.

[mbuechse]

I could review this. At a quick glance, I don't see any severe problems. Before I give it more scrutiny, I think we should be clear regarding the naming inside the certificate zoo.

[mbuechse]

I think I said it already somewhere, but SCS is already using the term "level" for the dimension about "compatible", "open", and "sovereign". This is covered in scs-0003-v1

Whatever we do, I think we should avoid overloading the term.

[janiskemper]

Not sure if I understand this correctly. We say that the applicant receives points by bringing an environment to production.

If this has been done in the past 12 months, we get two points, and when it was more recent within 6 months, we get one point?

I think we have some mistake here.

Either this is about bringing an environment to production that is still running, and then it is good if the environment still is in production, because that indicates it worked, or this is about saying that recently the applicant brought something to production, and then 6 months is more recent than 12 months and should therefore give more points.

I'm a bit clueless here whether I am just completely stupid or whether I have a point 😆

[janiskemper]

IMO in Kubernetes the regions don't matter really that much. Therefore, I believe this criteria is only really valid for IaaS.
If we want to make it explicitly for both, we should probably think about some examples of what we wanna include in this list and what should be excluded.

[janiskemper]

If I have a Kubernetes platform, then this is extremely easy to achieve. With two customers, I already fulfill the silver requirement. Is this intended?
I would probably say that there is no reason to NOT give the certification in silver to a company that does that, but at the same time it is a very different use case to managing to OpenStack clouds, if we look at the size of the project.

Two OpenStack clouds are way bigger than the two Kubernetes clusters with each 6 nodes that would in theory suffice for the Kubernetes certification.

We have had that topic before and I believe we concluded that it is okay, but I just wanted to raise awareness again so that we have that clear for everyone.

[depressiveRobot]

@janiskemper Your comments appear to be valid objections. I have added this to the next SIG Std/Cert on 2026-02-12 to discuss it. If you can, please join the meeting.

[janiskemper]

noted

[fkr]

Suggested change

	### Certificate levels
	### Certificate tiers

[fkr]

Suggested change

	Version 2 of this standard introduces a multilevel certification with Silver and Bronze levels. The levels are awarded according to a target score to be reached based on a predefined scoring system (see below).
	Version 2 of this standard introduces tiers of certifications beginning with Silver and Bronze tiers. The Tiers are awarded according to a target score to be reached based on a predefined scoring system (see below).

[fkr]

Looking at these names again. We all agree that basically the Silver and Bronze Scheme is legit. Since those are "Tiers" (not levels, see my other comment), why don't we name them like this:

Suggested change

	- Certified SCS IaaS Silver Integrator: SCS IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) implementation partner
	- Certified SCS KaaS Silver Integrator: SCS KaaS (Kubernetes as a Service) implementation partner
	- Certified SCS IaaS Bronze Integrator: aspiring SCS IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) implementation partner
	- Certified SCS KaaS Bronze Integrator: aspiring SCS KaaS (Kubernetes as a Service) implementation partner
	- Certified SCS IaaS Integrator (Silver): SCS IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) implementation partner
	- Certified SCS KaaS Integrator (Silver): SCS KaaS (Kubernetes as a Service) implementation partner
	- Certified SCS IaaS Integrator (Bronze): aspiring SCS IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) implementation partner
	- Certified SCS KaaS Integrator (Bronze): aspiring SCS KaaS (Kubernetes as a Service) implementation partner

Basically making the Bronze and Silver a noticeable tier. The artwork for the badges would also resemble this. This way the name of the Certification stays the same and the Tier becomes visible.

@selis-osba ?