Self-hosted cloud infrastructure comes with many constraints, from costs to scalability, and businesses worldwide are making the switch to public and multi-cloud configurations. The top cloud providers in the market, including Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, provide full infrastructural support plus security and maintenance. But how do these cloud services compare to each other? Let's investigate.
Amazon Web Services
AWS is the leading platform with a 30 % stake in the public cloud market. AWS boasts high computing power, extensive data storage, and backup services, among other functionalities for business processes and DevOps.
AWS storage
AWS has a hybrid storage model through the Storage Gateway. The latter synergistically combines with Amazon's back up feature, Glacier. There are options for simple block S3 storage or block storage with E2B. AWS elastic file storage expands at the speed of file creation and addition.
Computation
The AWS compute service, Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, is integrable with other Amazon Web Services. The resultant agility and compatibility help with cost-saving in data management. You can scale these services in minutes, depending on your business needs. There is also the Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS) that can be used to manage your applications, website IP addresses, and access security groups. AWS has a Kubernetes container service as well.
AWS ML & AI
Amazon Web Service champions machine learning and artificial intelligence through features such as Sage, Comprehend, Translate, and a dozen others. These ML and AI tools help with analytics and automation. And a Lambda serverless computing function gives you the freedom to deploy your apps straight from their server repositories. AWS security features include API activity monitoring, vulnerability assessments, and firewalls.
AWS Security
AWS security features include API activity monitoring, vulnerability assessments, and firewalls. You can expect other controls for data protection, access management, and threat detection and monitoring. The AWS cloud also lets you filter traffic based on your rules and track your compliance status by benchmarking against AWS best practices and CIS benchmarks.
AWS pricing
AWS offers a tiered pricing model that accommodates startups and Fortune 500 companies. A free tier option offers small startups 750 Hours of EC2 service every month.
AWS SLA
The monthly uptime is 99.95 %. Service credits are computed as a percentage of the total amount paid by customers for AWS EC2 or EBS if they were unavailable in the region affected for the billing cycle in which unavailability occurred.
AWS Features
- Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
- AWS Elastic Beanstalk
- Amazon Relational Database Service
- Amazon DynamoDB
- Amazon SimpleDB
- Amazon Simple Storage Service
- Amazon Elastic Block Store
- Amazon Glacier
- Amazon Elastic File System
- Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC
- Elastic Load Balancer
- Direct Connect
- Amazon Route 53
Microsoft Azure
Azure has a 16 % stake in the market and is the second most popular cloud platform. Azure has a full set of solutions for day-to-day business processes and app development. There is no limitation to computing capacity on MS Azure. You can scale that in minutes. The cloud service provider also accommodates apps that must run parallel batch computing. Most azure features can integrate with your existing system, delivering unlimited power and capacity for your enterprise business processes.
MS Azure storage
The MS cloud platform offers Blob Storage, a storage option dedicated to REST-based objects. You can also expect storage solutions for large scale data and high volume workloads from Queue storage to disk storage, among others. Like AWS, Azure has a large selection of SQL databases for extra storage. MS Azure offers hybrid storage capabilities for cloud and on-prem Microsoft SQL Server functions.
MS Azure computation
Azure cloud computing solutions run on virtual machines and range from app deployment to development, testing, and datacenter extensions.
Azure compute features are compatible with Windows servers, Linux, SQL Servers, Oracle, and SAP. You can also choose a hybrid Azure model that blends on-prem and public cloud functionalities. The Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) on the other hand is a serverless orchestration platform for faster containerization, deployment, and management of apps
MS Azure ML & AI
Like AWS, azure offers select ML and AI tools. These tools are API-supported and can be integrated with your on-prem software and apps. Their serverless Function platform is event-driven and is useful in the orchestration and management of complex workloads. Azure IoT features like Sage are tuned towards high-level analytics and business management. The Azure Security Center covers tenant security, and you also get an activity log monitoring.
MS Azure Security
The Azure Security Center covers tenant security, and you also get an activity log monitoring. The security controls are built-in and multilayered, enabling protection for workloads, cryptographic keys, emails, documents, and common web vulnerabilities. The continuous protection extends to hybrid environments.
MS Azure Pricing
The hourly server on the Azure cloud starts from $0.099 per hour. In terms of GB and RAM, azure pricing is comparable to AWS.
MS Azure SLA
The monthly uptime percentage is 99.99 %. The provider has service credits, including 25 % for 99 per cent availability and 100% for less than 95% uptime.
MS Azure Features
- Virtual Machines
- App Service and Cloud Services
- Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
- Azure Functions
- SQL Database
- Table Storage
- Azure Cosmos DB
- Disk Storage
- Blob Storage
- Azure Archive Blob Storage
- Azure File Storage
- Virtual Networks (VNets)
- Load Balancer
- ExpressRoute
- Azure DNS
Google Cloud Platform
GCP entered the public cloud market a little later than AWS and Azure, and therefore its market share is still at an infant stage. Even so, this cloud platform excels in technical capabilities and AI and ML tools. GCP also boasts undersea server deployment and a user-friendly console that makes setup an easy task.
GCP Storage
GCP provides cloud storage, disk storage, and a transfer service along with SQL and NoSQL database support.
GCP Computation
Google was the original developer of the Kubernetes platform, and it is, therefore, their primary service function. GCP supports Docker containers, and they can deploy and manage apps for you, monitor performance and scalability based on traffic and run code from Google Cloud, Assistant, or Firebase.
GCP ML & AI
Google Cloud has robust ML and AI capabilities and features. These include speech recognition, natural language processing, and video intelligence, among others. GCP includes custom security features within its Cloud Security Control Center.
GCP Security
GCP includes custom security features within its Cloud Security Control Center. GCP is built on a secure architecture from hardware infrastructure to storage and Kubernetes. IT logs and tracks each workload, providing 24/7 monitoring for all data elements and communication channels. Identity and data security are two of the most critical parameters for Google Cloud Platform.
GCP Pricing
GCP uses a pay-as-you-go model of pricing. The platform has excellent discount offers for clients that work with it for more than a month.
GCP SLA
The GCP SLA guarantees a monthly uptime of not less than 99.5% for all its cloud services. If that's not met, you are guaranteed credits of up to 50% in the final bill.
GCP Features
- Google Compute Engine
- Google App Engine
- Google Kubernetes Engine
- Google Cloud Functions
- Google Cloud SQL
- Google Cloud Datastore
- Google Cloud Bigtable
- Google Cloud Storage
- Google Compute Engine Persistent Disks
- Google Cloud Storage Nearline
- ZFS/Avere
- Virtual Private Cloud
- Google Cloud Load Balancing
- Google Cloud Interconnect
- Google Cloud DNS
To Summarize
You realize that not every cloud platform is designed the same. Even the best provider might not have features that adequately address your business needs. AWS vs. Azure vs. GCP comparisons should be about weighing what works well for your business.
At Cloudride, we work with AWS, Azure & GCP as well as other cloud vendors and can help you choose a solution that delivers the best performance, reliable security, and cost savings.
Contact us to learn more.