Sunday, 19 May 2024

What's the Difference Between AWS vs. Azure vs. Google Cloud?

 

Aws vs Azure vs Google Cloud

Amazon Web Service, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform are the top cloud service providers that dominate the worldwide cloud market. Each of them has its own advantages. AWS is known for its large global presence and scalability options, while Azure is better at integrating with other services and providing better security. Whereas, GCP's advanced data management and machine learning features set it apart.

Whether to opt for Cloud Computing has become an irrelevant question today; now, the question arises, which cloud platform to go for? So, how will you decide which one to choose? How do you conclude the big AWS vs Azure vs Google Cloud debate? To give answers to all such questions, we are here with a detailed comparison of all these giant cloud service providers.

Read More: Top 50 Azure Interview Questions and Answers

What is Cloud Computing?

Cloud Computing is the on-demand availability of computer resources like servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics, and intelligence through the internet or cloud medium. It eliminates the need for individuals and businesses to self-manage physical resources themselves, and only pay for what they use.

Cloud computing uses a network (most often, the internet) to connect users to a cloud platform where they request and access rented computing services. A central server handles all the communication between client devices and servers to facilitate the data exchange.

Read More: What is Cloud Computing? A Beginner’s Guide to Microsoft Azure

There are three different cloud computing deployment models:

three different cloud computing deployment models:


Read More: Azure Roadmap to Become Azure Developer

Benefits of Cloud Computing

  • Decreased CapEx

No matter which cloud computing service model is used, enterprises only pay for the computing resources they use. It lets you offload some or all of the expense and effort of purchasing, installing, configuring, and managing mainframe computers and other on-premises infrastructure.

  • Reduced Infrastructure Maintenance

As cloud computing provides all the resources through the internet it eliminates the need for physical storage and maintenance. It helps the businesses to focus on other goals and initiatives.

  • Increased Availability

Due to cloud computing, any organization can now use enterprise applications in minutes instead of waiting weeks or months for IT to respond to a request, purchase and configure supporting hardware, and install software. This feature empowers users—specifically DevOps and other development teams—to help leverage cloud-based software and support infrastructure.

  • Scalability

Cloud computing provides elasticity and self-service provisioning, so instead of purchasing excess capacity that sits unused during slow periods, you can scale capacity up and down in response to spikes and dips in traffic. You can also use your cloud provider’s global network to spread your applications closer to users worldwide.

Amazon Web Services

Amazon Web Services (AWS), a subsidiary of Amazon.com is the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform. It offers nearly 200 fully featured services to individual developers, large enterprises, and even governments. With AWS, you can leverage the latest technologies to experiment and innovate more quickly. The AWS Partner Network (APN) includes thousands of systems integrators specialized in AWS services and tens of thousands of independent software vendors (ISVs) who adapt their technology to work on AWS.

Amazon Web Services

Below is the list of popular AWS Users:

  • Coursera
  • Expedia
  • Netflix
  • Coinbase
  • Formula 1
  • Intuit
  • Airbnb
  • Lyft
  • Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
  • Coca Cola

Microsoft Azure

Microsoft Azure is the second-largest cloud platform. It not only provides Windows-based services but also supports open-source languages, technologies, and platforms, giving anyone the freedom to build and support any application. It offers almost 200+ services in 78 regions available in 140 countries.

Microsoft Azure

Below is the list of popular Azure Users:

  • Bosch
  • Audi
  • ASOS
  • HSBC
  • Starbucks
  • Walgreens
  • 3M
  • FedEx
  • Walmart
  • HP
  • Mitsubishi Electric
  • Renault
Read More: AWS vs. Azure: Key Differences between AWS and Azure

Google Cloud

Google provides the Google Cloud Platform. It is a suite of cloud computing services that runs on the same infrastructure that Google uses internally for its end-user products such as Google Search engine and YouTube. It currently offers over 100 services spanning computing, networking, big data, etc. It is the smallest of the three cloud providers yet offers robust cloud services to power and support any kind of application.
Google Cloud
Below is the list of popular Google Cloud Users:
  • Toyota
  • Equifax
  • Nintendo
  • Spotify
  • The Home Depot
  • Target
  • Twitter
  • Paypal
  • UPS

Aws vs Azure vs Google Cloud

Now, we'll compare the three cloud providers in terms of various parameters.

1. Common Services

1. Compute Services

Here is a look at each platform's computational capabilities individually.
ServicesAWSAZUREGCP
IaaSAmazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud)Azure Virtual MachineGoogle Compute Engine
PaaSAWS Elastic BeanstalkApp ServiceGoogle App Engine
ContainerAWS Elastic Container/Kubernetes ServiceAzure Kubernetes Service (AKS)Google Kubernetes Engine
Serverless FunctionsAWS LambdaAzure FunctionGoogle Cloud Functions

Read More: An Introduction to Azure App Services

2. Database Services

ServicesAWSAZUREGCP
RDBMSAmazon Relational Database ServiceAzure SQL/ Database for MySQL/PostgreSQLGoogle Cloud SQL
NoSQLDynamoDB, Simple DBAzure Cosmos DB, Table StorageBigTable, Cloud Datastore

3. Storage Services

ServicesAWSAzureGCP
Object StorageAmazon Simple Storage ServiceBlob StorageGoogle Cloud Storage
File StorageElastic File SystemAzure File StorageGoogle Filestore
Cold StorageAmazon GlacierAzure Archive Blob StorageGoogle Cloud Storage Nearline
Virtual Server DisksAmazon Elastic Block StoreManaged DisksGoogle Compute Engine Persistent Disks
Data Warehouse/Data LakeAmazon RedshiftAzure Synapse AnalyticsGoogle BigQuery

4. Networking Services

ServicesAWSAzureGCP
Virtual NetworkAmazon Virtual Private Cloud(VPC)Virtual Networks (VNets)Virtual Private Cloud
Load BalancingElastic Load BalancerAzure Load BalancerGoogle Cloud Load Balancing
FirewallAWS Firewall / Web Application FirewallAzure FirewallGoogle Cloud firewalls
DNSAmazon Route 53Azure DNSGoogle Cloud DNS
CDNAmazon CloudFrontAzure Content Delivery Network (CDN)Cloud CDN
PeeringDirect ConnectExpressRouteGoogle Cloud Interconnect

5. Specialized Services

ServicesAWSAzureGCP
DevOpsCodePipeline, CodeBuild, CodeDeploy, CodeStarAzure Boards, Pipelines, Repos, Test Plans, ArtifactsGCP DevOps CloudBuild, Artifact Registry
AI & MLAmazon SageMaker, Amazon Comprehend, Amazon Lex, Amazon PollyAzure Machine Learning, Azure Databricks, Azure Cognitive Search, Azure Bot Service, Cognitive ServicesVertex AI, AutoML, Dataflow CX, Cloud Vision, Virtual Agents
IoTFreeRTOS, IoT Core, Greengrass, IoT Analytics, SiteWiseAzure IoT Hub/Central, IoT Edge, Azure Sphere, Azure RTOSGoogle Cloud IoT Core
AR & VRAmazon SumerianAzure Mixed Reality (Spatial Anchors/Remote Rendering)ARCore
Game DevelopmentAmazon GameLiftAzure PlayFab
Business AnalyticsAmazon QuicksightAzure Power BILooker
End-User ComputingAmazon WorkspacesAzure Virtual Desktop

Read More: Top 10 Most Used Microsoft Azure Services

2. History And Open Source

AWSAzureGCP
AWS came into the market in 2006Azure started services in 2010GCP launched in 2008
AWS has been friendly with the open-source model from the beginningAzure has not so good a relationship with the open-source communityGCP offers managed open-source services that are tightly integrated into Google Cloud
Large and complex scale offerings of services that can potentially be manipulated.Low-Quality SupportQuite costly support fee of about $150/month for the silver class, which is the most basic of services

3. Availability Zones

AWSAzureGCP
105 availability zones across 33 regions in 245 countries113 availability zones across 69 regions in 215 countries109 availability zones across 69 regions in 215 countries

4. Pricing

There are some factors affecting the cost of the cloud platform They are:

  • Customer specifications
  • Usage
  • The services utilized
Machine TypeAWSAzureGCP
Smallest InstanceAWS charges roughly US$69 per month for a primary instance with two virtual CPUs and eight gigabytes of RAM.In Azure, an instance with 2 CPUs and 8 GB of RAM, will cost roughly US$70 per month.GCP will supply you with the most basic instance, including two virtual CPUs and eight gigabytes of RAM, at a 25% lower cost. As a result, it will cost you around US$52 every month.
Largest InstanceThe most expensive AWS instance, with 3.84 TB of RAM and 128 CPUs, will cost you roughly US$3.97/hour.Azure's largest instance includes 3.89 TB of RAM and 128 CPUs. It costs about $6.79 per hour.GCP's largest instance is 3.75 TB of RAM and 160 CPUs. It will cost you approximately US$5.32/hour.

5. Managing Packages

AWSAzureGCP
You need to integrate external software or third-party software like ArtifactoryAzure has a package manager tool called Azure Artifacts to manage packages like Nuget, Maven, etc.Artifact Registry is used to manage container images and language packages (such as Maven and npm)

6. Service Integration

AWSAzureGCP
Users can easily integrate services with Amazon EC2, Amazon S3, Beanstalk, etc.Users can easily integrate services with Azure VM, Azure App Service, SQL databases, etcUsers can easily integrate services Compute Engine, Cloud Storage, Cloud SQL, etc.

7. Hybrid and Multicloud Options

A hybrid cloud merges one or more public clouds with an organization's existing infrastructure and a private cloud, offering a versatile and integrated solution.

AWSAzureGCP
  • AWS Snowball
  • AWS Snowcone
  • AWS Outposts
  • AWS Local Zones
  • VMware Cloud on AWS
  • AWS Wavelength
  • Amazon ECS Anywhere
  • Amazon EKS Anywhere
  • Azure Arc
  • Azure Backup
  • Azure Active Directory
  • Azure Security Center
  • Azure Blob Storage
  • Azure Stack
  • Azure Centinel
  • Anthos
  • Traffic Director
  • Looker
  • Cloud Build
  • Operations
  • Cloud Run for Anthos

8. Pros and Cons

1. Pros

AWSAzureGCP
AWS is an established market leader.Azure is Open to Hybrid Cloud systems.GCP specializes in highly high-competitive offerings like Big data and machine Learning.
High Transfer Stability: Minimal data loss during server and storage transfer.Easy integration with Microsoft tools and software.Easy integration with other GCP Services like Compute Engine, Kubernetes Engine, or App Engine.
Easy Availability of Data: users can choose to store data close to their locationAzure has a more profound knowledge of enterprise needs.Well-detailed documentation, including an API reference guide.
AWS has a vast global infrastructure with data centers located in multiple regions worldwideAzure has a significant global footprint with data centers distributed across multiple regions worldwide.It offers a vast global network of data centers, ensuring low latency and high-performance services across regions.

2. Cons

AWSAzureGCP
Incomplete and weak Hybrid StrategyIntegration with non-Microsoft is complex.Google’s App Engine is limited to Java, Python, PHP, and Google Go.
Support for hybrid cloud outputs is still in its early stages, lacking demonstrated maturity.Restrictive Platform, Less flexible with non-windows server platformsThe cost of downloading data from Google Cloud Storage is relatively high
Large and Complex scale offerings that can potentially be manipulated.Low-Quality SupportQuite costly support fee of about $150 per month for the silver class, which is the most basic of services

Read More: Top 50 Azure Administrator Interview Questions and Answers

How to Decide Which Cloud Provider is Best?

We saw a detailed comparison of all three major cloud providers. Now which cloud provider best suits your needs? How to know which is the best for our business? To answer all these questions, we'll look at some major positive and negative points of these cloud providers. After that, you decide which of the three best suits your needs.

  • Establishment: AWS has been providing its services for five years. So, in this category, AWS wins.
  • Availability zones: AWS has the highest number of regions and availability zones. Here, again AWS is leading.
  • Market shares: AWS spans one-third of the cloud market emerging as the winner in this parameter.
  • Growth rate: AWS has a nearly 100 percent growth rate.
  • Users: A large number of high-end customers are using all three cloud platforms. So here, there's a tie between them.
  • Services: AWS offers the largest number of services i.e. at least 200. Hence, it leads from the front in terms of services. But here, in terms of integration with open-source and on-premise systems, such as MS tools, that are mostly used in almost all organizations, the winner is Azure.
  • Pricing Models: In this criteria, Google Cloud fits the best as it offers various customer-friendly pricing models and discount models.

We can see that in this battle, AWS wins in almost all the parameters. But this doesn't make the other two irrelevant. Even though AWS is the current market leader in terms of capacity and service, Microsoft and Google are also rapidly growing to compete with AWS. Azure and GCP each have their own set of advantages.

Hence, we can conclude that you should not go for the best cloud service provider but select the best-suited provider according to the needs of your business or organization.

ScholarHat has come up with the following Certification Programs and Courses to help you upskill your cloud-computing skills.

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