CHOICE OF CLOUD COMPUTING
The adoption of cloud computing has quickly become a key driving force for businesses today, as applications are moved out of on-premise data centres in a bid to innovate, cut costs and increase agility.
Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) is a model where a third-party provider hosts and maintains core infrastructure, including hardware, software, servers and storage on behalf of a customer. This typically includes the hosting of applications in a highly scalable environment, where customers are only charged for the infrastructure they use.
Early concerns over security and data sovereignty have largely been addressed by the ‘big three’ public cloud vendors – Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform – with only the most heavily regulated businesses continuing to tread carefully when it comes to the adoption of cloud services.
AMAZON WEB SERVICES
Elastic Compute Cloud: Amazon’s flagship compute service is Elastic Compute Cloud, or EC2. Amazon describes EC2 as “a web service that provides secure, resizable compute capacity in the cloud.” EC2 offers a wide variety of options, including a huge assortment of instances, support for both Windows and Linux, bare metal instances, GPU instances, high-performance computing, auto scaling and more.
Age
- Since 2006
Pros
- Dominant in many features such as configuring, monitoring, security.
- Extensive mature offerings.
- Open and flexible
- Global reach.
- Cons
Difficult to use.
- Overwhelming options.
- Cost management.
Market Share
- 62% as of 2018.
Pricing
- Per Hour.
MICROSOFT AZURE
Virtual Machines: Microsoft’s primary compute service is known simply as Virtual Machines. It boasts support for Linux, Windows, SQL Server, as well as enhanced security, hybrid cloud capabilities and integrated support for Microsoft software. It has an extremely large catalog of available instances, including GPU and high-performance computing options, optimized for artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Age
- Since 2011.
Pros
- Integration with Microsoft tools.
- Broad feature set.
- Ranks first in development and testing tools.
- Open source support.
- Hybrid cloud.
Cons
- Less efficient management tooling.
- Less “enterprise-ready”
Market Share
- 20% as of 2018
Pricing
- Per Minute
GOOGLE CLOUD
Google’s catalog of compute services is somewhat shorter than its competitors. It is however more unique.
Its primary service is called Compute Engine, which boasts both custom and predefined machine types, per-second billing, Linux and Windows support, automatic discounts and carbon-neutral infrastructure that uses half the energy of typical data centers.
Age
- Since 2012.
Pros
- Open source support and portability.
- Discount & flexible contracts.
- Designed for cloud-based businesses.
- DevOps expertise.
Cons
- Lately entered in IaaS market.
- Less data centers over the world.
- Fewer services and features.
Market Share
- 12% as of 2018
Pricing
- Per Minute
