So, the question is often asked, ‘Which is the right cloud for you?’ The battle is always heated up between Azure vs AWS and to measure this, the comparison is listed below. Read on to know more about it.
With the introduction of Amazon Web Services (AWS), in 2004, it has immersed very strongly to provide a competitive landscape. And another big name in this competitive world is Microsoft Azure, operating since 2010. Although it is not as long as AWS, it is gaining speed and is definitely giving a tough competition.
But choosing one over the other is not so easy, this is a definitely a great battle: Azure vs AWS. While AWS is known for its key services like stability and reliability with a wide range of compelling offerings, on the other hand, Azure is a cloud offering which is done by the authors of the closed source tools. However, both these services by now had got enough time to create stable, profitable and flexible products and uplift their performance.
Azure vs AWS Comparison
In order to compare AWS and Azure, there are certain points that need to be considered. Read on to know more about them in details.
- AWS vs Azure Server Capacity: Although they are the big boy’s of the cloud computing world, AWS is much bigger than that of Azure. And so the question follows- How much bigger? The server capacity of AWS is 6 times larger when 12 competitors are combined together. As a result, the cloud hosting services usually operate on thin margins, making bulk profits from the volume. Thus, it becomes crucial to capture as much market share possible. So how do these tech giants achieve this? They regularly cut down the price of their offerings, especially the compute-storage combo. This Azure vs Amazon war has resulted in giving an advantage to other companies.
- AWS vs Azure Pricing: Depending on capacity, the amount of data that needs to be transferred, performance, advanced features, auto-scaling and load balancing, the cost is usually decided. The figures of cost are also dependent on how often you use cloud instances. The main difference in pricing stands at a point when Microsoft Azure pricing even includes rounding up the last minute, whereas Amazon web services pricing includes rounding up the last hour.
- Support Plan: The biggest differences between AWS and Azure lie on the support plans. While the support plans for Azure are billed as a flat monthly fee, AWS bills are tied to monthly usage. Hence in Amazon cloud computing, the support cost can grow exponentially if you are a heavy user. Both these services offer tech support and in the case of any issues, there is a dedicated account manager, who can solve very easily if anything goes wrong.
- Reliability and Uptime: Both the computing system provides greater than 99. 95% service availability. If the uptime drops below that figure, the credit is provided back to the customer. While both the service providers have been reliable, popular services like Netflix, Office 365 and much more similar services have been affected due to periodic outages experienced by both the service providers.
- Set up and user-friendliness: For Windows admin, Azure is more convenient because of the fact that there is no need to learn a new platform. To create a hybrid cloud environment, it is easy with cloud instances to integrate on-premises Windows servers. AWS, on the other hand, provides a lot of flexibility, power, and room for customization and even support for third-party integrations. Even for heavy users, this is a great platform for hosting Linux instances.
Comparison Inside The Box
Although it is not very easy to do a direct side by side comparison, here only the close ones have been highlighted. While the list is far from complete, the table is just an attempt to make comparisons, to draw a cloud review.
| Microsoft Azure | Amazon Web Services | |
| Available Regions | Azure Regions | AWS Global Infrastructure |
| Computer Services | Virtual Machines | Elastic Compute Cloud |
| Cloud Services Azure Websites and Apps | Amazon Elastic Beanstalk | |
| Azure Visual Studio Online | None | |
| Container Support | Docker Virtual Machine Extension | EC2 Container Service |
| Scaling Options | Azure Autoscale | Auto Scaling |
| Hadoop Options | HD Insight | Elastic Map Reduce |
| Government Services | Azure Government | AWS GovCloud |
| Desktop Services | Azure Remote App | Amazon WorkSpaces
Amazon App Stream |
| Storage Options | Azure Storage | Amazon Simple Storage |
| Block Storage | Azure Blob Storage | Amazon Elastic Block Storage |
| Hybrid Cloud Storage | StorSimple | AWS Storage Gateway |
| Backup Options | Azure Backup | Amazon Glacier |
| Storage Services | Azure Import Export | Amazon Import/ Export |
| Azure File Storage | AWS Storage Gateway | |
| Azure Site Recovery | None | |
| Content Delivery Network | Azure CDN | Amazon CloudFront |
| Database Option | Azure SQL Database | Amazon Relational Database Services
Amazon Redshift |
| Networking Options | Azure Virtual Network | Amazon VPC |
| Azure Express Route | AWS Direct Connect | |
| Azure Traffic Manager | Amazon Route 53 | |
| Load Balancing | Load Balancing for Azure | Elastic Load Balancing |
| Administration and Security | Azure Active Directory | AWS Directory Service
AWS Identity and Access Management |
| Management Services and Options | Azure Resource Manager | Amazon Cloud Formation |
| Other Services and Integrations | Azure Machine Learning | Amazon Machine Learning |
| Azure Functions | AWS Lambda |
Another one Good Comparison Table
Recommended to watch:
Azure vs AWS
Conclusions
Amazon Web Service
- For scalable and automation offerings
- Global and local availability
- For any robust application
- For different levels of security
- If you are in need for the most robust feature set.
Microsoft Azure
- If you are a fan of Microsoft technologies
- If you are okay with scalability limitations
- User of Office 365 or Azure PaaS
- If you want to use only a single provider
- In search for a contingency plan for AWS
- For financial benefit.
Although to keep the competition alive, both these provider keep cutting off their price, but at the same time, service quality and innovation are never compromised. While, at this moment Amazon continues to rule the marketplace as an infrastructure and as a service provider, but for how long exactly? So, keep on guessing and hope for a shift! Be in touch and find out more about the batlle: Azure vs AWS.
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