Microsoft Azure vs AWS vs Google Cloud
In more recent years, public cloud adoption has become an integral part of most businesses' infrastructure strategy and roadmap. Enterprises from around the world have already made the switch from self-hosted infrastructure to public cloud configurations.
And while companies will still need some on-premise technology, they can now develop applications directly in the cloud. In fact, roughly 73% of businesses already have at least one app or part of their infrastructure in the cloud. By 2020, 83% of enterprise workloads will reside in the cloud.
For those looking to go down the road of cloud adoption, several questions come to mind. These are "Which cloud platform should I adopt?" "Which platform provides the most cost-effective services for my needs?" and "How do I go about my cloud adoption?"
Typically, public cloud services are used as:
According to industry analyst firm Gartner, the IaaS market has reached $52.9 billion in 2019 and is expected to exceed $83.5 billion by 2021. The SaaS market, on the other hand, is at $87.2 billion and will reach $117.1 billion in two years. Although smaller than both SaaS and IaaS, PaaS will also see steady growth over the coming years. In 2019, the PaaS market is at $18.6 billion, reaching $27.3 billion in 2021.
At the moment, three leading cloud platform providers make up the majority of the market share. These are Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). As of the first quarter of 2019, AWS dominates the market at a 38% percent market share. It's followed by Microsoft Azure with 18% and Google Cloud at 9%.
Now, even if both Azure and GCP are behind AWS in terms of market shares, they have both seen significant growth in recent years. While AWS has seen 41% in growth, Azure and GCP saw 75% and 83%, respectively.
Since it's the oldest on the market, AWS also has the biggest community support and user base. Among its high-profile customers, we can include the likes of Unilever, BMW, Netflix, Airbnb, and Samsung.
Azure has also taken its fair share of well-known customers. In fact, almost 80% of Fortune 500 companies use it. Some of these are Fujifilm, HP, Johnson Controls, Polycom, Apple, and Honeywell, among others.
When it comes to Google Cloud, it also has its own high-end companies that use its services. Among the most noteworthy, we can include PayPal, Bloomberg, 20th Century Fox, Dominos, HSBC Bank, and others.
All three cloud providers offer cloud computing services that can meet even the most basic needs. The main difference lies in the total number of services and how these fit with each company's needs. Below, we will be taking a closer look at each of these platforms in more detail and see which services and features distinguish them from their competition.
As mentioned, AWS's primary strength is in the public cloud market, being the cloud IaaS majority market share leader for over a decade. One of the reasons for this popularity is its vast scope of operations. AWS has a broad and growing array of available services.
It also provides a comprehensive network of worldwide data centers. In a sense, AWS is the most mature and enterprise-ready cloud provider as it offers the most capabilities of governing large numbers of resources and users.
On the downside, Amazon's platform has cost-related issues. While it has lowered its prices, many find it difficult to understand its cost structure and manage their costs effectively while running high-volume workloads. Another drawback is its limited hybrid or private cloud capabilities.
AWS is a good choice for both startups and enterprises alike. The platform provides numerous services for both web and analytical workloads as well as large scale data center migrations.
Amazon is also looking to help differently-sized customers by offering niche services via RoboMaker, while also building a virtual private server in the form of LightSail. This way, they want to help even small, single-server workloads to be onboarded without much overhead.
From a compute perspective:
In terms of managed databases, AWS supports MySQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, Oracle, and MS SQL. They also feature their own PostgreSQL and MySQL compatible database offerings. For NoSQL databases, they provide DynamoDB for key-value and document, Elasticache for key-value caching, and Neptune for graphs.
AWS also provides a managed VPN Gateway, NAT gateway, Direct Connect Gateway, Transit Gateway, and a recently announced Client VPN service. This will remove the need to deploy OpenVPN servers when managing access to the company's VMs.
As far as network security is concerned, AWS has managed services for:
For data security, AWS provides:
Though Azure came later on the cloud market than AWS, it got a significant jumpstart by taking its on-premise software and moving it to the cloud. This includes Windows Server, Office365, Sharepoint, .Net, SQL Server, Dynamics Active Directory, and more.
This is particularly important since many businesses use Windows and other Microsoft software. And as Azure is highly integrated with these applications, companies that use Microsoft software will also feel at home using Azure. Also, those that are already Microsoft enterprise customers can expect sizable discounts.
The drawbacks of Azure sometimes come in the form of technical support, training, documentation, and the width of its ISV partner ecosystem.
Azure also provides a wide range of features that may be preferred by customers that are already using Microsoft products. With over 151 VM types over 26 VM families, Azure can support both small web workloads as well as SAP, HPC, and Oracle workloads. It also has Windows and Linux distros like CentOS, SUSE, RHEL, and Ubuntu, as well as a separate family of instances for AI/ML workloads.
For those who want to interface Azure and run services in their own data centers, they can use Azure Stack, its hybrid cloud computing software solution. The platform also offers support for hybrid storage apps like StorSimple. Data centers with predominantly Microsoft workloads that need to migrate to the cloud can use Azure Site Recovery to do so.
When it comes to SQL and NoSQL databases:
In terms of billing, Azure provides a pay-as-you-go (PAYG) model. Those that have existing enterprise accounts can also pre-purchase Azure subscriptions as part of their annual renewals. This makes it easier for budgeting.
Unlike the other two, GCP specializes in high compute offerings in the form of ML, Big Data, and analytics. It also offers great scale and load balancing. Many customers choose to use GCP as a secondary provider. Nevertheless, those that are more open-source and DevOps-centric will tend to go with GCP as their main cloud provider.
In terms of downsides, Google's platform doesn't offer the same array of features and services like Azure or AWS. It also doesn't have as many global data centers as its two main competitors, but it's expanding at a rapid pace.
While Google has the smallest number of VM sizes (28 instance types over 4 categories), it makes up for it by allowing its customers to create their own custom sizes based on memory and CPU. This means that users can match their cloud workloads sizing to their own on-premise sizing.
Billing is also based on the total memory and CPU used rather than VMs, which reduces the overall waste of unused capacity. Another waste-reducing feature is its per-second billing instead of the traditional per-hour method. Google also provides automatic discounts that can reduce the on-demand price. The sustained use discount, for instance, offers a price reduction when a VM runs more than a certain number of hours in a month. This makes GCP the most cost-effective cloud provider.
VM startup times in GCP are very fast, making scaling out especially responsive. The platform also helps its users assess, plan, and live-migrate their VMs to GCP for free. It does this through its third-party cloud migration tools like CloudPhysics, Velostrata, and CloudEndure.
Having a global, low latency network, GCP is great at its networking. While other cloud providers limit their VPC networks to any given region, Google's VPC network spans all its regions. This makes it easier to build applications for global customers without the need for cross-region infrastructure design or data replication. The same thing goes for object storage.
GCP provides support for managed PostgreSQL and MySQL databases. Also, for those wanting a globally distributed database, they can use Spanner. This is Google's NewSQL globally distributed database service that provides developers a production-ready storage solution that uses consensus algorithms and atomic clocks, among other such features. These help with synchronizing transactions between nodes.
While the aforementioned services are not all that each platform has to offer, they are, however, the most noteworthy features that set them apart from one another. That said, here is a short rundown to help you make a decision.
Choosing AWS - Amazon's platform has a rich collection of tools and services for large scale uses. That said, you should make sure to understand its pricing structure before running a high volume of workloads on the service.
AWS is a good fit for:
Choosing Azure - Azure's biggest appeal is its Microsoft software integrations. Similarly, the platform's focus on the hybrid cloud helps bridge your legacy data center environment with the scalable Microsoft cloud.
Azure is a good fit for:
Choosing GCP - Google is a great platform in terms of its application container deployments, big data, ML, and analytics capabilities. It also offers the best pricing model of all the three.
GCP is a good fit for:
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Every business owner, director or CTO has countless questions before deciding on whether or not to migrate to a public cloud, as opposed to using the already familiar in-house methods that have been used for years. We have come up with important questions to ask yourself before migrating to a public cloud.
All these questions, curiosities and worries are well-founded because you need to know all the advantages and disadvantages implied by undergoing the switch to a public cloud. It may be a lengthy process, and this is why you should see if it’s worth it, or not. Most of the times it is, and here’s why.
The cloud services most companies are familiar with are Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and the Google Cloud Platform. While these services are the most popular, they may not prove to be the best solutions for your company, depending on the costs you have estimated in your budget and depending on the data you need to migrate to a public cloud.
Microsoft Azure was created for building, testing, deploying and managing applications and services through a global network of Microsoft-managed data centers. Similar to this cloud service, the AWS, which is a subsidiary to Amazon.com, provides on-demand cloud computing platforms to individuals and companies on a paid subscription basis.
The cloud platform offered by Google comes complete with more or less the same features, being a suite of cloud computing services that run on the same infrastructure used internally by Google for its end-user products; the most famous examples: Google Search and Youtube.
If you’re not sure yet whether you should migrate your company’s data to a public cloud, you should ask yourself these three questions:
1. Do I want access to a larger talent pool working for my company?
It is the first question you should start with. By switching over to a public cloud, not only will you benefit from 24/7 technical support, but you will also stand to gain from the years of experience which can be had by working with IT resource management companies. These companies experience a more extensive variety of situations that may appear because they encounter more situations on a daily basis than most companies encounter in an entire year.
Also, migrating to a public cloud, you will have access to talented people from all around the world, people you would otherwise have no access to because they live far away on a different part of the globe.
2. How will the knowledge transfer and other business-related activities go after migration?
Smoother, Faster, Better, Stronger. When you have your IT knowledge in one place where it can be accessible for your employees from any corner of the world they are, it’s easier to get things done from both a technical and business standpoint.
Your employees can have all the benefits they would have if they were present at the company’s headquarters, even if they are currently working for one of your clients, in their offices, which could be located on another continent.
Information becomes accessible at a click of a button, without having to go through all the email and phone calls to receive requested materials.
3. Is it a greener approach for my company?
In our modern day society, nothing should be more important than keeping our business as green as possible and limiting our carbon footprint to a minimum. It is what any self-respecting company is currently doing, and migrating to cloud services is at the top of the list when it comes to evolving your company into an environmental-friendly one.
Without having to keep all those servers plugged in and consume way too much energy than your company needs, you’ll be exponentially reducing the mark you leave on the planet, and you can start on having a positive one on the business world.
If you’re interested in learning more about cloud services and how to migrate to a public cloud; be sure to get in touch with us - right here
Sources: stackify.com, azure.microsoft.com, aws.amazon.com
Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services go head-to-head, but which one is really the best on top? Whether you are planning a multicloud solution with Azure and AWS, or migrating to Azure, you can compare the IT capabilities of Azure and AWS services in all categories. As the leading public cloud platforms, Azure and AWS each offer businesses a broad and deep set of capabilities with global coverage. Yet many organizations choose to use both platforms together for greater choice and flexibility, as well as to spread their risk and dependencies with a multicloud approach. Consulting companies and software vendors might also build on and use both Azure and AWS, as these platforms represent most of the cloud market demand.
Security and management tools include Active Directory Federation Services, Azure Active Directory, Multi-Factor Auth, among others, as well as a range of integrations for Azure monitoring and performance tweaks.
No matter which IaaS offering you get, you will be using Amazon’s identity and security services such as AWS CloudHSM’s key storage service and Amazon’s own Active Directory. Not only that, but AWS offerings also have a range of management tools that users can use, including AWS Config, AWS Cloudtrail, and Cloudwatch.
Azure has multiple app deployment options for developers. Including App Services, Cloud Services, Service Fabric, Container Service, Functions, Batch, WebJobs and more. No matter what type of application you are developing, Microsoft has great tools in place to help deploy and scale it.
AWS offers similar solutions with Container Service, Elastic Beanstalk, Lambda, and Batch. AWS does not have as many options or features on the app hosting side. Microsoft has flexed their knowledge of developer tools to have a little bit of an advantage for hosting cloud apps.
Hybrid clouds are easier with Azure, partly because Microsoft has foreseen the need for hybrid clouds early on. Azure offers substantial support for hybrid clouds, where you can use your onsite servers to run your applications on the Azure Stack. You can even set your compute resources to tap cloud-based resources when necessary. This makes moving to the cloud seamless. Aside from that, several Azure offerings help you maintain and manage hybrid clouds such as Azure Stack, Hybrid SQL Server, and Azure StorSimple. Microsoft’s long history of working on enterprise IT gives them an upper hand when it comes to the hybrid cloud.
While Amazon realizes that it needs to strengthen its offerings to support hybrid clouds, it is still catching up, with more investments earmarked for hybrid clouds, according to Brian Olsavsky, Amazon’s chief financial officer. Still, the retail giant currently has a handful of solutions that is geared for companies who wants hybrid cloud deployments such as Storage Gateway, Direct Connect, and DynamoDB Local.
Harness the power of government cloud computing, so you can focus on advancing your mission. Designed only for US federal, state, local, and tribal agencies and their partners, Azure Government offers:
The AWS cloud provides scalable cost-efficient solutions for the US Federal Government. The cloud services can be employed to meet mandates, reduce costs, drive efficiencies, and increase innovation across Civilian agencies and the Department of Defense. It is a pay-as-you-go model, delivering access to up-to-date technology resources that are managed by experts.
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Online content provider Netflix is able to support seamless global service by partnering with Amazon Web Services (AWS) for services and delivery of content. AWS enables Netflix to quickly deploy thousands of servers and terabytes of storage within minutes. Users can stream Netflix shows and movies from anywhere in the world, including on the web, on tablets, or on mobile devices such as iPhones.
Source: http://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/netflix/?pg=main-customer-success-page
Read customer success stories to learn how Managed Solution helps businesses implement technology productivity solutions.
Condé Nast is a well-established media and publications company known for producing high quality lifestyle content suited for everyone. As a result of going all-in into the AWS Cloud, the company reduced costs by 40% and increased operational performance by 30-40%.
In just three months, Condé Nast was able to migrate over 500 servers, one petabyte of storage, various mission critical applications (such as HR, Legal, and Sales), and over 100 database servers into the AWS Cloud. With this migration, Condé Nast can now create content faster, while improving organizational creativity, productivity, agility, flexibility and time to market.
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