Today, I am going to talk about one of the biggest Cloud wars of the centuries i.e.: AWS services vs Azure : which one is better for your business?
AWS:
Amazon Web Service is a subsidiary of Amazon.com that provides on-demand cloud infrastructures to individuals, companies, and governments on a paid subscription basis.
AWS launched in 2006 is one of the most used cloud platforms across the world. AWS is considered one of the best storage solutions. Companies like Adobe, Netflix, Airbnb, HTC, Pinterest, and Spotify have put their faith in AWS for the proper functioning. It also dominates the cloud computing domain with almost 40% of the entire market share. So, far, nobody has even gotten close to beating that number. AWS also provides a wide range of services that covers a substantial number of domains like computing, networking, storage, migration and so much more. Amazon web services has sixty-nine availability zones.
Azure:
Microsoft azure is a cloud computing service created by Microsoft for building, testing, deploying, and managing applications and services through a global network of Microsoft managed data centers.
Microsoft Azure entered the cloud war late but had made its mark with a bang. Azure was launched in 2010 and is trusted by 80% of all the fortune five hundred companies. The best of the best companies in the world choose to work with Azure. Azure provides its services to fifty-five regions and 140 countries. Azure also provides more than one hundred services spanning a variety of domains. Safe to say, it is winning the Cloud war.
The battle between AWS vs. Microsoft Azure highlights the fierce competition in the cloud computing market, benefiting organizations with a range of reliable and innovative services to choose from.
Market Share:
Here are the stats for the market share of AWS, Azure, and other cloud service providers.
Amazon Web services takes a whopping 40% of the market share, closely followed by Azure at 30% and other cloud services adding to 30%. This shows how close the battle between AWS vs. Microsoft Azure is.
This 40% indicates most organizations have a clear interest in using AWS vs. Microsoft Azure. They are number one because of their years of experience and trust they have created among their users.
AWS is the undisputed market leader when it comes to cloud computing domain. By 2020, AWS is expected to produce twice its current revenue, which comes close to forty-four billion dollars. AWS is constantly expanding its already strong roster of more than one hundred services to fulfill the shifting business requirements of organizations.
Azure is also not very behind. It’s only a matter of time before Azure takes the lead. This becomes more likely considering how all companies are migrating from AWS services vs Azure to satisfy their business needs. The research company Gartner has released a Magic Quadrant which shows the competition is now neck to neck between the AWS services vs Azure Cloud war.
Microsoft Azure is not far behind AWS when it comes to services as well. Azure service offerings are constantly updated and improved to help users. So, AWS services vs Azure is closer than you would expect.
Pricing:
Let’s look at the cost of the extremely basic instance which is a virtual machine of two virtual CPUs and 8GB RAM for AWS services vs Azure.
- For AWS this will cost you approximately 0.0928 USD/hour.
- For the same instance in Azure, it will cost you approximately 0.096 USD/hour.
Free Offerings:
AWS provides a considerable number of its services for free, helping users get hands-on experience with the platform, products, and services. The services under free tier fall under two categories:
- Services that will remain free forever
- Services that are valid free for only one year
Always free | Valid for a Year |
|---|---|
>20 services offered | ~20 services offered |
E.g.: Amazon SNS, SQS, CloudWatch, etc. | E.g.: Amazon S3, EC2, ElastiCache etc. |
Both types of services have limits on their usage (e.g.: storage, no. of requests, computer time etc.), but users are charged for using that fall under ‘valid for a year’ category after their year-old usage.
Microsoft Azure provides a free tier as well. It also provides services that belongs to two categories:
- Always Free
- Valid for a Year
Always free | Valid for a Year |
|---|---|
25+ services offered | 8 services offered |
E.g.: App Service, Functions, Container service, Active directory, etc. | E.g.: Linux/Windows Virtual machines, blob storage, SQL database, etc. |
Azure also provides users with 200USD credits to access all their services for 30 days. After which they can use their services that fall under the free for a year and always free category.
Instance configuration:
The largest instance that AWS offers is that of a whopping 256 GB RAM and sixteen virtual CPUs.
The largest that Azure offers isn’t extremely far behind either, i.e., 224 GB RAM and sixteen virtual CPUs.
Comparison:
Factor | AWS | Azure | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Features | Good | Better | |||||||||
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AWS vs. Microsoft Azure.
These are some of the comparisons between AWS services vs Azure
- AWS has a wide range of features that users benefit from. However, they require a little management from the user.
Azure goes slightly deeper with services that fall under certain categories like PaaS and IaaS.
- Although AWS didn’t emphasize Hybrid cloud earlier; they are focusing more on the technology now.
Azure has always emphasized Hybrid cloud and has features supporting it since the days of its inception.
- For developers, AWS is better, and Azure is good because AWS supports integration with third party applications.
Azure provides access to datacenters that provide scalable architecture.
- AWS provides a competitive and constantly decreasing pricing model.
Azure provides offers that are constantly experimented upon, to provide users with the best experience.
Each Cloud Computing platform has its own pros and cons. Choosing the right one is based entirely on your organization’s requirements.
Last Updated 6 months ago
