Cloud wars: Amazon Web Services Vs Microsoft Azure Vs Google Cloud Platform

In the pandemic era, the traditional ways of business have disappeared or have transformed digitally. Amidst these changes, a host of technologies have the potential to disrupt entire business models positively, and cloud technology is one of them. Today's businesses with nascent cloud infrastructure are struggling to ensure business stability and continuity. On the other hand, start-ups to enterprises that have adopted cloud technology before the COVID-19 pandemic reap the advantage of the current circumstances.

The figures in this report justify all the hype that follows the cloud technology market ecosystem. It states that the market for cloud tech services will be worth a whopping $832.1 billion in 2025.

The cloud technology market has gradually matured. This article will mention the three leading service providers that a business can leverage to maximize its business potential.

The three titans, i.e., AWS vs Microsoft Azure Vs Google Cloud Platform(GCP), clash for dominance in the space of IaaS, and PaaS. Let's go through each one of them.

Amazon Web Services (AWS): Overview

Amazon is known for revolutionizing online commerce and also bringing cutting-edge cloud computing platforms for enterprises. Their platform is based on the global framework and disbursement of AWS. The services are further divided into regions, zones, and edge locations. As of now, they have around 22 regions, 14AZs, and 114 edge locations.

The AWS infrastructure is known for fast and efficient data delivery and global scale deployment without any performance-related issues. In tandem with a top rated AWS development company, the platform supports all types of operating systems and is considered the best among all Iaas platforms in terms of application and availability.

With the recent AWS re:Invent update , it appears that AWS development services will be brought to new heights with amazing cloud-to-cloud integrations.

AWS boasts of providing 18,000 services, and the list is only growing. Some of the primary benefits are highlighted below.

• Machine learning
• Predictive analysis
• Developer, engagement, and management tools
• Database and storage solutions
• Productivity tools
• Compute service
• App integration

Microsoft Azure Overview

Microsoft Azure or Azure is known for its robust integrated service for companies (mainly enterprises) heavily invested in windows based solutions. Despite initial obstacles, today, Microsoft Azure is giving a tough competition to AWS for cloud supremacy.

The foremost advantage of Azure apart from cloud migration cost is its Linux-ready ecosystem. It is already familiar with the virtual guest operating systems and has previous exposure to the Linux container platforms.

If you deploy a leading Azure consulting company, their Azure services offer a robust IaaS and will come with in-built support to run server apps based on PHP, Java, Node.js, .NET, Python, and many more.

Some of the critical services are highlighted below.

• Predictive analysis
• Big data
• Data warehousing
• DevOps
• IoT integration
• Blockchain technology
• Game and app development

Google Cloud Platform (GCP) Service Overview

Google's cloud platform is relatively a new entrant compared to AWS and Azure. And yet, in the year 2020, it managed to figure in Gartner's magic quadrant of leaders just behind AWS and Azure.

Some of the primary services offered by the Google Cloud Platform

• Productivity and workload management tools
• Data management and storage
• SMB business analytics and AI
• App development

Now it is time to look from the business perspective.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) Pros and Cons

Pros

The reason to choose one platform over another will largely depend on the customer's business objective. But there are aspects in cloud computing that prove to be advantageous in certain business conditions. In this case, the exhaustive list of custom AWS development services is seen as a massive advantage over its rivals.

AWS began offering its services quite early and had started working on its suite of cloud services way back in 2006. These tools are built keeping in mind the enterprise-level stakeholders like CIO, project managers, developers, etc..

The AWS marketplace has many third-party software services and offers an excellent support ecosystem and product strategy for its partners.

Cons

Amazon Web Services (AWS) seems to lag when it comes to hybrid cloud strategy, where it has maintained a pessimistic attitude towards the benefits of on-premises private clouds. Recruiting top AWS-certified cloud developers could be the best way to navigate any cons that come up in the way. But for now, it seems they have warmed up to the idea and are working towards it.

Another disadvantage to AWS services is that they can be quite overwhelming to its users. It looks great to see so many offerings, but it can be challenging to manage and optimize the numerous features.

The third disadvantage is not directly related to AWS but is still a significant concern. Although considered a market leader, AWS is seen as a potential business competitor due to its rapid expansion and emerging competence in various industries such as healthcare and financial services.

This will result in limiting Amazon's success streak in some verticals and may also impact associated services. However, only time will tell how IT leaders will work around the rapid rise of AWS.

Microsoft Azure Pros and Cons

Pros

One of Microsoft Azure's most significant advantages is that it already has a strong presence in organizations heavily dependent on Microsoft's products suite. It is only natural for the organizations to transition over to Azure instead of choosing another vendor given that it can easily link with servers, system centres and active directories.. On the other hand, Microsoft knows this very well and has strategically tried to co-market Azure services through its extensive sales capabilities.

In a Goldman Sachs survey of 100 senior IT executives, 56 of the respondents said they preferred Azure over AWS. Whereas only 48 chose AWS over Azure.

Cons

A significant shift in Microsoft's strategy is its increased dependence on open source technologies. Currently, almost half of its workload is running on Linux. However, this has also allowed their systems to become prone to outages like the world-wide outage in May 2019.

There is also ever-existent concern raised by the enterprises on the quality of the Microsoft technical support, field solution architects, and high cost. This has proved to be detrimental in rapid Azure adoption and customer spending.

Google Cloud Platform Pros and Cons

Pros

Google is well known for its innovation-driven collaborations with cloud-native companies. It also has a proven record in the open-source community. But all of this has not allowed it to make a significant breakthrough in the enterprise market.

Cons

Google has so far shied away from becoming a strategic cloud partner and instead has focussed on becoming a go-to-market strategy partner on small-scale innovative initiatives. Google is now perhaps focussed more on becoming a pre-cloud business partner and offer IT process supporting technology to attract traditional enterprises.

In fact, due to these shortcomings, Gartner had mentioned in its 2019 magic quadrant report that Google is still immature when it comes to processes and procedures in the context of enterprise accounts. This is mainly due to Google's own less priority-driven approach towards the enterprise market.

Some of these shortcomings become glaring about contract negotiation, discounting, independent software vendor licensing (ISV), enterprise system integration, and support.

Google has so far lagged behind its competition in the area of sales and solutions perspective. Enterprise leaders have often pointed out Google's inability to build specific solutions for enterprise requirements and engage with their solutions architects. However, it seems Google has taken a serious note of this and is working proactively in this area.

Another drawback from the market presence point of view is that Google has not entered the Chinese market. This is one of the world's largest IT markets and is already having AWS and Microsoft Azure presence through Chinese third-party partners.

AWS vs Azure vs Google Cloud: Finding the Best Platform?

Choosing the right cloud platform is more than just fitting every need. The primary choice depends on your unique business needs and capabilities. Let’s examine the difference between AWS vs Azure vs Google Cloud to assist you in making the easier choice.

• While talking about the popularity or market share of AWS vs Azure vs Google Cloud, AWS has the largest market share among cloud providers. Azure comes second, and it is rapidly growing with strong enterprise solutions. And Google Cloud is known for its competitive pricing, focusing on innovation and data analytics.
• AWS offers the widest range of services and features, including IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS, while Azure focuses on hybrid solutions, especially strong in enterprise solutions and integrations with Microsoft products, and Google Cloud is known for strong data analytics, machine learning, and open-source integrations.
• Talking about the difference between AWS vs Azure vs Google Cloud, AWS has EC2 for scalable compute capacity. Azure has virtual machines with extensive support for Windows and Linux, and Google Cloud comes with Google Compute Engine for scalable computing resources.
• In terms of database services, AWS has RDS, DynamoDB, and more for diverse database solutions. Azure supports SQL Database, Cosmos DB, and extensive database services. Google Cloud supports Cloud SQL, Cloud Spanner, and BigQuery for data analytics.
• While considering networking, AWS has VPC, Direct Connect, and Route 53 DNS. Azure has Virtual Network, ExpressRoute, and Azure DNS. Google Cloud supports VPC, Cloud Interconnect and Cloud DNS.
• In terms of performance, AWS provides superior performance for multiple workloads, Azure is optimized for Microsoft-powered applications, and Google Cloud performs better in big data processing.
• The pricing model of Azure vs AWS vs Google Cloud is that Azure comes with pay-as-you-go, discount options, and savings plans with a slightly less complex pricing structure than AWS, which is cost-effective for enterprises. AWS has a pay-as-you-go plan with a complex pricing structure. Google Cloud is known for its straightforward pricing and discounts.
• In terms of hybrid cloud support, Azure is designed for hybrid cloud environments. AWS is capable of some hybrid cloud solutions, while Google Cloud comes with limited hybrid options.

Conclusion

Certain types of companies will be attracted to a specific cloud application development services given its unique requirements. So if you are looking for a broad range provider with a worldwide reach, AWS is the right choice. But if your organization uses a lot of Microsoft products, then Azure is your go-to platform. And if you are a start-up looking for a quick scale-up and use machine learning to fulfill business objectives, Google is ideal for you.