AWS vs GCP vs Azure Which is Best for Your Next Web App?

AWS

Amazon Web Services is a comprehensive, evolving cloud computing platform. AWS launched in 2006 from the internal infrastructure that Amazon.com built to handle its online retail operations. AWS was one of the first companies to introduce a pay-as-you-go cloud computing model that scales to provide users with computing, storage or throughput as needed. It provides services from dozens of data centers spread across availability zones (AZs) in regions across the world. An AZ represents a location that typically contains multiple physical data centers, while a region is a collection of AZs in geographic proximity connected by low-latency network links. It provides a mix of infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) and packaged software as a service (SaaS) offerings. More than 100 services comprise the Amazon Web Services including compute, databases, infrastructure management, application development, and security. For in-depth expertise and skills enroll for AWS Training.

GCP

Google Cloud Platform is a suite of cloud computing services that run on the same infrastructure that Google uses internally for its end-user products, such as Google Search and YouTube. In April 2008, Google announced App Engine, a platform for developing and hosting web applications in Google-managed data centers, which was the first cloud computing service from the company. The service became generally available in November 2011. Since the announcement of App Engine, Google added multiple cloud services to the platform.

Google Cloud Platform provides Infrastructure as a service, Platform as a service, and Serverless computing environments. It also provides a series of modular cloud services including computing, data storage, data analytics, and machine learning. Registration requires a credit card or bank account details.

Azure

Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing service created by Microsoft for building, testing, deploying, and managing applications and services through Microsoft-managed data centers. Azure was announced in October 2008, started with the codename "Project Red Dog", and released on February 1, 2010, as "Windows Azure" before being renamed "Microsoft Azure" on March 25, 2014. It provides software as a service (SaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) and infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and supports many different programming languages, tools, and frameworks, including both Microsoft-specific and third-party software and systems. Microsoft lists over 600 Azure services. Azure is generally available in 42 regions around the world. Microsoft has announced an additional 12 regions to be opened soon (as of October 2018 reports). In early 2018, Microsoft acquired Avere Systems to build out Azure's capabilities in high-performance storage with network file systems (NFSes) and server message block (SMB) file-based storage for Linux and Windows systems.

 

In the 'normal' cloud space, AWS, Google and Microsoft have long established themselves as the world’s top three public cloud providers, with the famous “cloud wars” a constant in their operation fields.

Let's explore - how they compare across a range of vertical.

GCP vs AWS vs Azure

• Amazon’s network is the Virtual Private Cloud, Azure’s network is a Virtual Network, and Google’s network is the Subnet.

• Amazon provides top-rated cloud security services. Fortinet in Amazon Web Services (AWS) provides security features to Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) in many availability zones on-demand. While in Microsoft Azure, Fortinet supplies optimized security for data and applications and remove extra security expenditures during migration.

• AWS operates 49 Availability Zones within 18 geographic Regions, with announced plans for 12 more Availability Zones and four more Regions in Bahrain, Hong Kong SAR, Sweden, and a second AWS GovCloud Region in the US.

• Google Cloud Platform has 13 regions, 39 zones, over 100 points of presence, and a global network with 100,000s of miles of fiber optic cable.

• AWS can be purchased in any of the following models from On-demand, reserved and spot. An azure instance can be bought in any of the models from on demand and short termed commitments. For the Google cloud, it can be from On-demand and sustain use.

• Azure is available in 140 countries from the US to China (through a partnership with 21Vianet) and Japan, including 42 regions.

• Google’s Kubernetes history could be seen as a differentiator, however, since the company made the container app available through the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, both Microsoft and AWS have also become able to use the app.

• Amazon Web Services is dominating public cloud over MS Azure and Google since 2006 when it started offering services.

• Amazon EC2 provides core computing services to configure VM (Virtual Machines) with the use of custom or pre-configured AMIs while Azure provides a VHD (Virtual Hard Disk), which is similar to Amazon’s AMI to configure VM. Google provides Google Compute Engine to introduce cloud computing services.

• AWS provide long-running storage services while storage services provided by Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform are also reliable and respectable options.

• Azure supports big data and both the NoSQL and relational databases.

• Amazon Web Services (AWS) outshines the Cloud Market with 62 % market share which is more than three times from the market share of Azure and five times from the Google Cloud Platform. While Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform have only 20% and 12% market shares.

• GCP’s toolset is smaller, but it’s focused on delivering all services quickly and efficiently. Google’s speed of I/O is an advantage as well as the platform’s advancements in big data.

• Amazon has a SQL-compatible database called Aurora, Relational Database Service (RDS), DynamoDB NoSQL database, ElastiCache in-memory data store, Redshift data warehouse, Neptune graph database, and a Database Migration Service. Amazon offers Glacier, which is designed for long-term archival storage at very low rates. In addition, its Storage Gateway can be used to easily set up backup and archive processes.

• Microsoft Azure's basic storage services include Blob Storage for REST-based object storage of unstructured data, Queue Storage for large-volume workloads, File Storage and Disk Storage. It also has a Data Lake Store, which is useful for big data applications.

• GCP has the SQL-based Cloud SQL and relational database called Cloud Spanner that is designed for mission-critical workloads. It also has two NoSQL options: Cloud Bigtable and Cloud Datastore. It does not have a backup and archive service.

• AWS offers deepens, an AI-powered camera for developing and deploying machine learning algorithms to use with things like optical character recognition and image and object recognition. AWS has announced Gluon, an open source deep learning library designed to make it easy for developers and non-developers alike to build and quickly train neural networks without having to know AI programming.

• Microsoft has also invested heavily in artificial intelligence, and it offers a machine learning service and a bot service on Azure. It also has Cognitive Services that include a Bing Web Search API, Text Analytics API, Faces API, Computer Vision API, and Custom Vision Service. For IoT, it has several management and analytics services, and its serverless computing service is known as Functions.

• For the Google Cloud Platform, AI and machine learning are big areas of focus. Google is a leader in AI development thanks to TensorFlow, an open source software library for building machine learning applications. The TensorFlow library is popular and well regarded. A testament to its popularity is that AWS recently added support for TensorFlow.

• Considering AWS Vs Azure Vs Google, Amazon charges on an hourly basis while Azure and Google charge on the minute basis.

Conclusion

This battle cloud between AWS, Google, and Azure make us conclude that whatever cloud service you will opt, you will be happy. Due to the competition, all the cloud service providers are trying to attract customers with extended services at reduced prices. So, if you are an enterprise or an individual looking for a cloud service provider, take advantage of this moment. And if you are the one looking to make a career in cloud computing, you can get a certification offered by these cloud service providers.