Categories:
devops
Tags:
aws azure gcp
Author:
Dasha
04 August, 2021

Amazon, Microsoft and Google dominate the public cloud landscape providing the safest, flexible and reliable cloud services. Their respective cloud platforms, AWS, Azure and GCP offer clients a range of storage, computing and networking options.

Some of the features common among the three platforms include instant provisioning, self-service, autoscaling, identity management, security and compliance, among others.

At present, AWS can be considered to be much bigger than both Azure and GCP in terms of functionality and maturity.

However, the other two are also progressing at a faster rate to prove their market dominance.

Features AWS Azure GCP
Compute Services
  • AWS Beanstalk
  • Amazon EC2
  • Amazon EC2 Auto-Scaling
  • Amazon Elastic Container Registry
  • Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service
  • Amazon Lightsail
  •  AWS Serverless Application Repository
  •  VMware Cloud for AWS
  • AWS Batch
  • AWS Fargate
  • AWS Lambda
  • AWS Outposts
  • Elastic Load Balancing
  • Platform-as-a-service (PaaS)
  • Function-as-a-service (FaaS)
  • Service Fabric
  • Azure Batch
  • Cloud Services
  • Container Instances Batch
  • Azure Container Service (AKS)
  • Virtual Machines Compute Engine
  •  Virtual Machine Scale Sets
  • App Engine
  • Docker Container Registry
  • Instant Groups
  • Compute Engine
  • Graphics Processing Unit (GPU)
  • Knative
  • Kubernetes
  • Functions
Storage Services
  • Simple Storage Service (S3)
  • Elastic Block Storage (EBS)
  • Elastic File System (EFS)
  • Storage Gateway
  • Snowball
  • Snowball Edge
  • Snowmobile
  • Blob Storage
  • Queue Storage
  • File Storage
  • Disk Storage
  • Data Lake Store
  • Cloud Storage
  • Persistent Disk
  • Transfer Appliance
  • Transfer Service
AI/ML
  • SageMaker
  • Comprehend
  • Lex
  • Polly
  • Rekognition
  • Machine Learning
  • Translate
  • Transcribe
  • DeepLens
  • Deep Learning AMIs
  • Apache MXNet on AWS
  • TensorFlow on AWS
  • Machine Learning
  • Azure Bot Service
  • Cognitive Services
  • Cloud Machine Learning Engine
  • Dialogflow Enterprise Edition
  • Cloud Natural Language
  • Cloud Speech API
  • Cloud Translation API
  • Cloud Video Intelligence
  • Cloud Job Discovery (Private Beta)
Database Services
  • Aurora
  • RDS
  • DynamoDB
  • ElastiCache
  • Redshift
  • Neptune
  • Database Migration Service
  • SQL Database
  • Database for MySQL
  • Database for PostgreSQL
  • Data Warehouse
  • Server Stretch Database
  • Cosmos DB
  • Table Storage
  • Redis Cache
  • Data Factory
  • Cloud SQL
  • Cloud Bigtable
  • Cloud Spanner
  • Cloud Datastore
Backup Services Glacier
  • Archive Storage
  • Backup
  • Site Recovery
  • Nearline (frequently accessed data)
  • Coldline (infrequently accessed data)
Serverless computing
  • Lambda
  • Serverless Application Repository
 Functions Google Cloud Functions
Strengths
  • Dominant market position
  • Extensive, mature offerings
  • Support for large organizations
  • Global reach
  • Flexibility and a wider range of services
  • Second largest provider
  • Integration with Microsoft tools and software
  • Broad feature set
  • Hybrid cloud
  • Support for open source
  • Ideal for startups and developers
  • Designed for cloud-native businesses
  • Commitment to open source and portability
  • Flexible contracts
  • DevOps expertise
  • Complete container-based model
  • Most cost-efficient
Caching Elastic Cache Redis Cache Cloud CDN
File Storage EFS Azure Files ZFS and Avere
Networking Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) Azure Virtual Network (VNET) 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
DNS Services Amazon Route 53 Azure Traffic Manager Cloud DNS
Notifications Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS) Azure Notification Hub None
Load Balancing Elastic Load Balancing Load Balancing for Azure Cloud Load Balancing
Automation AWS Opsworks Azure Automation Compute Engine Management
Compliance AWS CloudHSM Azure Trust Center Google Cloud Platform Security

Key Takeaways!

The differences between the three major cloud services can be seen by evaluating them using different parameters such as compute, storage, databases, locations and documentation.

  • Compute: AWS offers the Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) that handles all compute services by managing virtual machines that have preconfigured settings and can also be configured by the users as required. On the other hand, Azure offers Virtual Machines and Virtual Machine scale sets while GCP provides the Google Compute Engine (GCE) which performs the same functions.
  • Storage: Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) is the best option for storage with extensive documentation, tried and tested technology with proper community support. Microsoft Azure Storage and Google Cloud Storage also offer reliable storage services.
  • Databases: Multiple tools and service options pertaining to databases are offered by all the major service providers. Amazon’s Relational Database Service (RDS) supports major databases such as Oracle and PostgreSQL and manages everything from updating to patching. Azure SQL database offers SQL database handling features for Azure, while it is Cloud SQL for GCP.
  • Location: AWS, Azure and GCP offer great coverage across the world and ensure peak application performance by having the least possible route to the intended customer base. While Amazon has 77 availability zones, Azure has a presence in 60+ regions and Google in 33 countries, with newer regions being added regularly.
  • Documentation: All three vendors offer high-quality documentation though AWS is slightly ahead of Azure and GCP.

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Primary source: veritis.com