Microsoft Azure:
Microsoft Azure, also known as Azure, is a cloud computing service operated by Microsoft for managing applications across Microsoft-managed data centers. It offers Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), and supports a variety of programming languages, frameworks, and tools, including Microsoft specific and third-party software and systems.
Amazon Web Services (AWS):
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is an Amazon subsidiary that provides an on-demand, pay-as-you-go cloud computing platform and APIs to individuals, businesses, and governments. These cloud computing web services provide processing power and software tools distributed across AWS server farms. One of these services is Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). This allows users to freely use virtual computer clusters over the Internet at any time. AWS services are provided to customers through the network of AWS server farms around the world. AWS operates in many regions around the world, including 6 regions in North America.
Azure v/s AWS – An Overview:
Amazon Web Services (AWS), the provider in the cloud infrastructure services market, controls 33% of the market, according to a report by a research group. Microsoft Azure is second with 21%. AWS and Azure essentially offer the same basic features when it comes to flexible computing, storage, networking, and pricing. Both share the common elements of public clouds: automatic scaling, self-service, pay-as-you-go pricing, security, compliance, identity access management capabilities, and instant delivery. Also, both cloud providers have 4 similar categories of services under
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS):
Azure
AWS
Compute
Compute
Performance
Content Delivery & Storage
Data Management & Databases
Database
Networking
Networking
Which is better?
There is no clear winner in Azure AWS battle of cloud service providers as enterprises are fortunate to be able to choose the most compelling features from each of these cloud service providers to enable their multi-cloud strategy. Enterprises requiring high availability and resilience should consider hosting multiple data centers. Both AWS and Azure are solid cloud providers and perform equally well for nearly 99% of use cases. Comparing Azure and AWS is very difficult as both continue to introduce new pricing structures, new products, and new integrations. Which platform you choose depends on your organization’s needs and how AWS vs Azure meets those needs.
For example, if an organization needs a powerful Platform as a Service (PaaS) provider or Windows integration, Azure is the perfect choice. If your business is looking for Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) or a different set of tools, AWS may be the perfect solution.
Regardless of the comparison, choosing the right public cloud service provider requires thorough research into what they need and what the service provider offers. Users can be the big winners in the cloud battle between AWS and Azure. Each of these providers attracts customers by offering advanced services at economical costs.
Cloud Storage:
A key feature of cloud service providers is their storage capabilities. Running services in the cloud requires data processing that ultimately needs to be stored. Azure’s storage capabilities are very reliable. However, AWS storage services are the longest running. Both Azure and AWS are strong in this category and include all the basic features like REST API access and server-side data encryption. Azure’s storage mechanism is called Blob Storage and AWS’s is called
Simple Storage Service (S3).
AWS cloud object storage service provides high availability and automatic replication across sites. AWS provides block storage equivalent to disks, which can be attached to any EC2 instance or detached entirely. It starts working when the instance starts and stops working when the instance ends. For VM-based volumes, Azure uses temporary storage and page blobs. Block storage options in Azure are the same as S3 in AWS. Azure offers two types of storage: hot and cool.Cold storage is cheaper than hot storage but read and write costs are higher.
Services
Azure
AWS
Storage
S3
Azure Storage-Blobs
Hot
S3 Standard
Hot Blob Storage
Cool
S3 Standard -Infrequent Access
Cool Blob Storage
Cold
Amazon Glacier
Archive Blob Storage
Object Size Limits
5 TB
4.75 TB
# of Object Limits
Unlimited
Unlimited
Storage
EBS
Managed Disks
Volume Types
Cold HDD, General purpose SSD, PIOPs SSD, Throughput Optimized HDD
Standard Premium SSD
Availability SLA
99.9%
99.9%
Networking:
One of the main concerns of many cloud users is finding an isolated and secure network. This is a security issue, not a privacy issue. In short, network performance is critical for cloud solutions. Both AWS and Azure have their own approach to creating isolated networks.
AWS uses Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs) to allow users to create isolated private networks within the cloud. It uses the API Gateway for cross-site connectivity and to ensure smooth operation it uses elastic load balancing throughout the network. Within a VPC, users have many options. Users can create subnets, private IP ranges, route tables, and network gateways.
Azure takes a slightly different approach. Instead of VPC, Azure uses virtual networks. It allows users to create isolated networks, subnets, private IP ranges, route tables, and network gateways. If users need cross-network connectivity, they use a VPN gateway. Load balancing is handled by load balancers and application gateways.
Both AWS and Azure offer firewall options and solutions to extend the on-premises data center to the cloud without putting your data at risk.
Deploying Apps:
Both Azure and AWS provide users with efficient and convenient infrastructure. This includes cloud hosting, computing power, and running apps in the cloud. Plus, a wide range of features and services. Similarly, both provide core functionality, like flexibility, simple development, and comprehensive management of mobile and web apps.
App Deployment in Azure:
Azure offers a wide range of capabilities for app delivery like Azure Batch, Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), virtual machine scale sets, etc. Azure includes virtual machines, which are computing resources for quickly configuring app instances. AWS does not include such resources. Apart from these, Azure also includes multiple app deployment solutions, including app services, batch deployments, and container services.
App Deployment in AWS:
AWS essentially delivers microservices via Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS). This allows developers to build their apps as separate services using the technology of choice. AWS primarily allows development of serverless apps by using Amazon API Gateway, Amazon S3, and AWS Lambda. Similarly, users can efficiently run enterprise applications and software in the AWS cloud environment by using these computing resources.
AWS and Azure offer various app delivery services. First and foremost, it supports multiple programming languages and frameworks. Apart from some differences, both have somewhat similar features and app deployment capabilities.
Database:
Azure and AWS offer database services for processing both structured and unstructured information, or big data. When it comes to data management durability, AWS users can take advantage of Amazon RDS, while Azure offers an Azure SQL Server database option.
Amazon’s Relational Database Service (RDS) is compatible with six database engines: MariaDB, Amazon Aurora, MySQL, Microsoft SQL, PostgreSQL, and Oracle. As for Azure, the SQL Server database solution is based entirely on Microsoft SQL. In terms of interface, Azure has a more user-friendly and smoother interface, while AWS offers better deployments and more instances. In terms of reach, these services are fairly comparable and offer analytics and big data capabilities.
For that, AWS has Elastic MapReduce (EMR) and Azure has HD Insights. Additionally, Azure users have access to the Cortana Intelligence Suite covering Spark, Hadoop, HBase, and Storm.
Compared with Azure, AWS provides a relatively mature environment for processing big data. Both systems are compatible with relational and NoSQL databases. They are ubiquitous, long-lived, and offer easy, automated replication. AWS offers additional instance types, but Azure’s tools and user interface are very easy to use, making it easy to perform many database operations.
Open-Source Developers:
AWS is Linux compatible and offers many integrations for various open-source applications, making it a good fit for open-source developers. On the other hand, Azure is aimed at enterprise customers, where users can leverage their existing Active Directory accounts to log in to Azure, and .NET and Linux are key to open Linux, Windows, and macOS environments with the .NET framework. Provides options to allow running apps based on source development.
Microsoft Azure is still in the process of embracing the open-source community, contributing to AWS’s dominance in the open-source cloud hosting space.
Azure v/s AWS – The Final Score:
Azure and AWS offer similar capabilities to customers and both cloud offerings are very comprehensive. Users can host a variety of applications, learn about cloud services, use AI and ML, and benefit from open-source contributions. However, some key differences remain, mainly in the pricing model and documentation approach. Most Azure users are affected by the availability of the larger Microsoft ecosystem, which includes various productivity tools, business applications,
and of course Windows. AWS, on the other hand, can be cheaper and is often a better choice for first-time users. The decision to choose either of the platforms depends on the needs of organizations and how Azure v/s AWS comparison meets those requirements.
