Cloud Computing
Cloud computing is a technology that offers access over the internet to different computing services. To connect to your cloud service provider via the internet, all you need to do is use your computer or mobile device. You get access to computational services once connected, which could include serverless computing, virtual computers, storage, and many other items.
Although multiple cloud computing solutions are available, the cloud computing market is dominated by a few platforms. The giants of the field of cloud computing are Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud.
AWS – Amazon Web Services
Across all sectors, cloud computing has become an important component of organizations. The most common type is AWS. This boosts competitiveness and gives relief for any variety of company activities. Companies were entirely reliant on bought servers back in the 2000s, and those servers had minimal functionality and high costs. Plus, countless validations were mandatory for a working server. The more growth companies experienced, the more they wanted servers and optimization methods. It proved impractical, and often prohibitively costly, to procure certain products.
A lot of those questions have been addressed by the gains of AWS. Companies using AWS have instantly accessible servers, and AWS offers different workloads, enhanced storage options, and enhanced security measures.
Microsoft Azure
Azure is a forum for cloud computing and an online interface that lets you access and track Microsoft’s cloud services and tools. Based on the specifications, these programs and tools include preserving the data and converting it. All you need to have is an active internet connection and the ability to login into the Azure portal to get access to these sites and services.
Windows Azure is also called Microsoft Azure. It is a cloud network that is used worldwide to develop, launch, and operate services. Multiple programming languages such as Java, Nodejs, C, and C# are supported. The value of using Microsoft Azure is that it helps us to organize and buy external hardware parts for a wide range of services.
Several computing facilities are offered by Microsoft Azure, including servers, storage, databases, applications, networking, and Internet analytics.
Google Cloud
Google Cloud is a suite of Google applications provided by Cloud Computing. The platform offers numerous facilities, such as computation, storage, networking, Big Data, and much more, using the same technology used internally by Google for its end-users, such as Google Search and YouTube.
For years, the Google server hasn’t gone down. So, if you intend to run your application on the platform of Google Cloud, then you can be confident that your apps are safe and stable.
Google’s Google Cloud Platform (GCP) was launched in 2011. It helps us to use Google apps such as Gmail, YouTube, Google search engine, etc. Many enterprises use this tool to quickly develop, transfer, and launch cloud applications. It enables us to use a high-speed internet service to access these applications. The benefit of GCP is that multiple databases, such as SQL, MYSQL, Oracle, Sam, and more, are supported.
Different cloud infrastructure resources, including computing, data analytics, data management, and machine learning, are supported by the Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
AWS, Azure, and GCP: Market Shares and Growth Rate
AWS has been dominating others in the global cloud industry since the inception of cloud computing. By gaining about 32 percent of the global market share, AWS enjoys domination. With 19 percent of the global market share, Microsoft Azure leads AWS.
And, with a 10 percent global market share, GCP is in third place.
Cloud Market Share at a Glance:
- AWS – 32%
- Microsoft Azure – 19%
- GCP – 7%
Difference between AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
Although the cloud systems of AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google provide different high-level features in computation, administration, storage, and other resources, there are some variations between these three as well.
The below table shows the difference:
| Parameter | AWS | Microsoft Azure | Google Cloud Platform |
| App Testing | It uses a device farm | It uses DevTest labs | It uses Cloud Test labs. |
| API Management | Amazon API gateway | Azure API gateway | Cloud endpoints. |
| Kubernetes Management | EKS | Kubernetes service | Kubernetes engine |
| Git Repositories | AWS source repositories | Azure source repositories | Cloud source repositories. |
| Data warehouse | Redshift | SQL warehouse | Big Query |
| Object Storage | S3 | Block Blobs and files | Google cloud storage. |
| Relational DB | RDS | Relational DBs | Google Cloud SQL |
| Block Storage | EBS | Page Blobs | Persistent disks |
| Marketplace | AWS | Azure | G Suite |
| File Storage | EFS | Azure Files | ZFS and Avere |
| Media Services | Amazon Elastic transcoder | Azure media services | Cloud video intelligence API |
| Virtual network | VPC | VNet | Subnet |
| Pricing | Per Hour | Per Minute | Per Minute |
| Maximum processors in VM | 128 | 128 | 96 |
| Maximum memory in VM (GiB) | 3904 | 3800 | 1433 |
| Catching | ElasticCache | Redis cache | CloudCDN |
| Load Balancing Configuration | Elastic Load Balancing | Load Balancer Application Gateway | Cloud Load Balancing |
| Global Content Delivery Networks | CloudFront | Content Delivery Network | Cloud Interconnect |
AWS Vs Azure Vs Google Cloud: Pricing
The price factor is known to be the prime impetus that affects the decision-making of IT businesses when selecting a public cloud service provider.
In terms of price and system model, the following contrast between AWS, Azure, and GCP will aid you in your decision making:
| Machine Type | AWS | Azure | GCP |
| Smallest Instance | An instance with 2 virtual CPUs and 8 GB RAM will cost you around USD69/month. | An instance with 2 virtual CPUs and 8 GB RAM will cost you around USD70/month. | Instance with 2 virtual CPUs and 8 GB RAM will cost you around USD52/month. |
| Largest Instance | The largest instance that includes 3.84 TB RAM and 128 vCPUs will cost you around USD 3.97/hour. | The largest instance that includes 3.89 TB RAM and 128 vCPUs will cost you around USD 6.79/hour. | The largest instance that includes 3.75 TB RAM and 160 vCPUs will cost you around USD 5.32/hour. |
The public cloud environment is dominated by Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, which offer the most stable, scalable, and efficient cloud services. AWS, Azure, and GCP, their related cloud services, provide consumers a variety of storage, computing, and networking solutions. Any of the similar characteristics of the three systems are, among others, instant provisioning, self-service, autoscaling, identity protection, authentication, and compliance.
By comparing them using various criteria such as computing, storage, files, positions, and metadata, etc., the variations between the three main cloud providers can be seen.
AWS Vs Azure Vs GCP: Feature-wise Comparison
| Details | AWS | Microsoft Azure | Google Cloud Platform |
Compute Services | 1) AWS Beanstalk2) Amazon EC23) Amazon EC2 Auto-Scaling4) Amazon Elastic Container Registry5) Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service6) Amazon Lightsail7) AWS Serverless Application Repository8) VMware Cloud for AWS9) AWS Batch10) AWS Fargate11) AWS Lambda12) AWS Outposts13) Elastic Load Balancing | 1) Platform-as-a-service (PaaS)2) Function-as-a-service (FaaS)3) Service Fabric4) Azure Batch5) Cloud Services6) Container Instances Batch7) Azure Container Service (AKS)8) Virtual Machines Compute Engine9) Virtual Machine Scale Sets | 1) App Engine2) Docker Container Registry3) Instant Groups4) Compute Engine5) Graphics. Processing Unit (GPU).6) Knative.7) Kubernetes.8) Functions. |
Storage Services | 1) Simple Storage Service (S3)2) Elastic Block Storage (EBS)3) Elastic File System (EFS)4) Storage Gateway5) Snowball6) Snowball Edge7) Snowmobile | 1) Blob Storage2) Queue Storage3) File Storage4) Disk Storage5) Data Lake Store | 1) Cloud Storage2) Persistent Disk3) Transfer Appliance4) Transfer Service |
AI/ML | 1) SageMaker2) Comprehend3) Lex4) Polly5) Rekognition6) Machine Learning7) Translate8) Transcribe9) DeepLens10) Deep Learning AMIs11) Apache MXNet on AWS12) TensorFlow on AWS | 1) Machine Learning2) Azure Bot Service3) Cognitive Services | 1) Cloud Machine Learning Engine2) Dialogflow Enterprise Edition5) Cloud Natural Language6) Cloud Speech API7) Cloud Translation API8) Cloud Video Intelligence9) Cloud Job Discovery (Private Beta) |
Database Services | 1) Aurora2) RDS3) DynamoDB4) ElastiCache5) Redshift6) Neptune7) Database Migration Service | 1) SQL Database2) Database for MySQL3) Database for PostgreSQL4) Data Warehouse5) Server Stretch Database6) Cosmos DB7) Table Storage8) Redis Cache9) Data Factory | 1) Cloud SQL2) Cloud Bigtable3) Cloud Spanner4) Cloud Datastore |
| Backup Services | Glacier | 1) Archive Storage2) Backup3) Site Recovery | 1) Nearline (frequently accessed data)2) Coldline (infrequently accessed data) |
| Serverless computing | 1) Lambda2) Serverless Application Repository | Functions | Google Cloud Functions |
Strengths | 1) Dominant market position2) Extensive, mature offerings3) Support for large organizations4) Global reach5) Flexibility and a wider range of services | 1) Second largest provider2) Integration with Microsoft tools and software3) Broad feature set4) Hybrid cloud5) Support for open source6) Ideal for startups and developers | 1) Designed for cloud-native businesses2) Commitment to open source and portability3) Flexible contracts4) DevOps expertise5) Complete container-based model6) Most cost-efficient |
| Caching | Elastic Cache | Redis Cache | Cloud CDN |
| File Storage | EFS | Azure Files | ZFS and Avere |
| Networking | Virtual Network (VNET) | Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) | Cloud Virtual Network |
| Security | AWS Security Hub | Azure Security Center | Cloud Security Command Center |
| Location | 77 availability zones within 24 geographic regions | Presence in 60+ regions across the world | Presence in 24 regions and 73 zones. Available in 200+ countries and territories |
| Documentation | Best in class | High quality | High quality |
| Pricing/ Discount Options | One-year free trial along with a discount of up to 75% for a 1-3 year commitment | Up to 75% discount for a commitment ranging from one to three years | GCP Credit of $300 for 12 months apart from a sustained use discount of up to 30% |
