AWS vs. Microsoft Azure: How to Opt Right Cloud Platform?
Finally, you are there! Moving to the cloud is always a remunerative decision for obtaining exclusive advantages of reduced upfront cost and rapid scalability. By approaching attractive propositions, cloud becomes an integral part of all kinds of organizations.
Cloud Market
Gartner, world’s leading research firm, has published a research in August 2016 which clears that market position of all popular Cloud IaaS providers.
- AWS leads the cloud space with the right combination of tools in a single platform
- Microsoft Azure is a close second just lacking in the impactful execution that AWS has.
- Google Cloud is the next most promising cloud player and is gaining the ground fast.
Key concern for organizations is to partner up with reliable cloud service provider. You must be aware of the ongoing tight competition amongst the two tech giants Amazon Web Service (AWS) and Microsoft Azure to dominate the cloud market. As Google is new to cloud, right now it is quite behind in this race. If we analyze the current industry trends, it is quite tough to make an appropriate choice out of both the cloud platforms.
Looking for help?
Well! Ultimate choice will be yours, but we would like to support you by providing a clear comparison of both the cloud platforms through this article. Get a detailed understanding about each of the cloud service providers and select the suitable one for you.
Foundation of Institutions
AWS holds more than a decade long experience, having started in 2004. At the initial phase, AWS was offering SQS service only. However, soon the tech giant expanded its wings to cover other cloud services such as Amazon S3, Amazon RDS, AWS CloudFront, Amazon EC2, and AWS Elastic Beanstalk.
When it comes to Azure, it’s a newcomer to the cloud, having established in 2010. Microsoft Azure started its journey as a compute cloud. Later on, the company penetrated into other service areas such as SQL Database, Cloud Services, Azure Active Directory, Virtual Machines, Azure CDN, and App Services.
No matter if you are willing to host a complex infrastructure or single application/solution, few aspects have to be considered in all circumstances such as core functionalities, pricing, and customer base of the cloud service provider. Let’s see which cloud platform is best for your business by analyzing all prominent features.
Core Functions
Storage & Content Delivery, Networking, Database and Compute are the primary features of AWS. All these features work seamlessly under unique admin panel of Amazon that involves auditing, control/encryption key creation/storage, identity management, monitoring, and logging, etc. AWS users can also have tons of deployment options and application services along with powerful analytics.
Azure also covers all the above aspects, but in four different functions. It allows to develop modern applications, build infrastructure, management access and identity, and gain insights from data. Moreover, Azure also contains HDInsight, Apache Storm and Hadoop implementation to perform real-time streaming process. Users can get the virtual machines off the ground quickly and allow employees to develop and deploy the apps.
Storage
AWS offers temporary storage that starts working along with the instance. Once the instance is terminated, storage is destroyed. It also provides Block Storage that is similar to hard disks. The Block Storage can be either attached to any instance or kept separate. Additionally, it offers archiving services with Glacier and object storage with S3 services.
Microsoft Azure uses Page Blobs and temporary storage for VM based columns. Files and Block Blobs server for Object Storage.
Database
AWS completely supports NoSQL and relational databases as well as Big Data.
When it comes to database, Azure supports NoSQL databases, relational databases, and Big Data through HDInsight and Windows Azure Table.
Compute
EC2 is the primary offering of AWS in the realm of compute. EC2 provides a wide range of options to facilitate users with customized offerings. Other computing services of AWS contains EC2 Container Service, AWS Auto scaling and Lambda as well as Elastic Beanstalk for app deployment.
Azure compute is based on its Virtual Machines that are attached to other tools such as Resource Manager and Cloud Services to deploy applications on the cloud platform.
Networking
Azure’s Virtual Network (VNET) and Amazon’s Virtual Private Cloud (VPCs) permit users to group Virtual Machines into isolated networks in the cloud. Users can identify private IP address range, network topology, network gateways and create subnets. Both the cloud platforms offer advanced solutions to extend your on-premise data center into Hybrid or public cloud.
Security
AWS has set high security standards to deliver advantages from a network architecture and data center to security concerned organizations. It permits users to innovate and scale the application while maintaining a secure ecosystem. Amazon assures users to have increased privacy and more controls at the lower cost. Main benefits of electing AWS are:
- Keep All Your Data Safe
- Quick Application/Solution Scalability
- Meet Compliance Requirements
- Save Costs
Azure cloud security is divided into five layers such as data, application, host, network, and physical. Azure infrastructure protects the Azure ecosystem from all vulnerabilities. For the user’s data security, Microsoft offers various services such as:
- Controlling and managing user access and identity
- Securing Networks
- Encrypting operation and communication process
- Managing Threats
Pricing
Due to increasing competitiveness, AWS is reducing the prices of their tools and services. On another hand, Microsoft has decided to keep pace with the AWS price drops. This competition is beneficial for customers as the cloud vendors are frequently reducing the cost of various services. So, now IT departments can have their expected cloud solutions into their budgetary constraints along with thinner margin to vendors. To get estimation of cloud costing, you can visit below links:
Amazon’s AWS Price Calculator: http://calculator.s3.amazonaws.com/index.html
Microsoft’s Azure Price Calculator: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/calculator/
Client Base
Being a well-established cloud platform, AWS holds the high profile user base. While selecting a cloud service provider, big corporates consider how the public cloud provides advantages to others in the different sectors. AWS has a strong presence in this space. So the company has some of the biggest names in their client list from versatile industry domains such as Financial Times, Nike, Nasdaq, AirBnB, Dow Johns, Channel 4, Royal Opera House, etc.
When compared to AWS, Microsoft has less high profile customers. It holds good credit for SaaS tools. Microsoft has few notable clients including Pearson, Heineken, NBC News, 3M, Ford, GE healthcare, and many others.
Verdict
As AWS offers exclusive functionalities, it is considered as a most mature cloud platform. It leads the market due to its multi-layer offerings. Tools and services provided by AWS are expensive, but their enterprise-friendly features make a strong proposition for the large-scale organizations. Moreover, being continuously evolving, AWS also provides economies of scale by enabling users with the consistent price cuts.
Microsoft Azure is a better choice for Hybrid approach. They are also committed to their promises and what they are offering right now.
Still not able to make a decision? Get in touch with Intuz Cloud team to have detailed information about both the cloud platforms. We would be glad to help you in picking the best cloud platform from AWS or Azure that increases your business productivity at reduced investments and resources.
Originally published at Clash of Clouds: AWS vs Microsoft Azure
Read all cloud related best at: Cloud Computing — Intuz Blog
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