Cloud computing has quickly become a key driving force for businesses today. Applications are moved out of on-premise data centres in a bid to innovate, cut costs and increase agility. There are several good computing services out there in the market, but you must choose your business’s right cloud platform. Every business has varied needs and requirements, and your cloud should be able to fulfil them. Factors like industry, size, turnover, number of employees, etc., also form the basis of choosing the right cloud service provider for your business.
Early concerns over security and data sovereignty have largely addressed by the ‘big three’ public cloud vendors – Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform with the most heavily regulated businesses continuing to tread carefully when it comes to the adoption of cloud services.
This has fueled a crowded IaaS market, pegged to be worth a total of $64.3 billion in 2021, up from $50.4 billion in 2020, according to research firm Gartner’s latest figures.
Amazon Web Services
Amazon Web Services provides cloud computing services to organizations, individuals, companies, and government, on-demand and on a paid-subscription basis. Launched back in 2006, with services including simple storage service and elastic compute cloud, expanded into Amazon CloudFront, Content Delivery Network, etc. With years of providing services, it has become one of the oldest and most experienced players with a massive user base. AWS is the world’s most comprehensive and broadly embraced cloud platform, conceding over 175 fully-featured services globally.
Microsoft Azure
Azure Computing Services launched in 2010 as Azur and known as Microsoft Azure in 2014. It offers cloud services, including analytics, storage, computing, and networking. It has an open and flexible enterprise-level platform that is faster to use. Azure has covered about 16% of the world market right now. It offers big data analytics and data exploration capabilities. It also consists of a data factory that offers data integration services that help in the data-driven workflow.
Google Cloud Platform
Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is a suite of Cloud Computing services. It runs on the same infrastructure that Google uses internally to provide products such as Google Search engine, YouTube, etc. Google Cloud Platform began its journey in 2011 and managed to create a good presence in the cloud industry . The initial intent of Google Cloud was to strengthen Google’s products such as Google Search engine and YouTube. But now, they have also introduced their enterprise services so that anyone can use Google Cloud Platform.
Key Takeaways
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. Microsoft Azure Storage and Google Cloud Storage also offer reliable storage services.
Databases – Major Service provider offers multiple tools and service options of databases. 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. Amazon has 77 availability zones, Azure has a presence in 60+ regions and Google in 33 countries, with newer regions being added regularly.
Conclusion
The war for cloud supremacy is between the Big Three. While several other players like IBM and Oracle have ventured into cloud services. They are still a long way off from cornering a significant share of the market. AWS, Azure and GCP are unique in their way and offer a plethora for organizations to select as per their specific requirements.
With AWS scoring more points in this cloud battle of Azure vs AWS vs Google Cloud. It easily comes out on top of all the major cloud providers, today. However, it’s hard to say for how long AWS will wear the crown of the leading cloud provider. Azure and GCP are relentlessly working their way up on the top cloud providers list.
AWS has the added advantage of being the first one of its kind. Azure and GCP also have their own set of strengths. Using Azure cloud makes more sense to several organizations that use MS tools. GCP offering the best pricing model for the infrastructure, on which Google Search engine and YouTube run, is the only reason customers need to go for GCP.
So, all things considered, it would be better to say that it’s not about choosing the best cloud providers, rather it’s about choosing the best-suited cloud provider as per your needs.
