AWS vs Azure: Which Cloud Platform Should You Choose in

Have you ever thought about how cloud service providers like Microsoft Azure and AWS are kind of like superheroes? They might not wear capes or have superpowers, but they’re still making the world a better place by helping millions of people store and access their data.

When it comes to choosing between AWS and Azure, it’s like trying to decide between Superman and Batman. Both are great in their own ways, but it’s hard to say which one is the best.

To make the decision, you have to think about things like cost, how much data you can store, and how easy it is to access your files.

Just like superheroes, clouds are everywhere – from your local elementary school to NASA. Who says you need to read a comic book to find a superhero? They’re all around us, making our lives easier and better.

AWS vs Azure: Computation Power

At its core, a computer is all about doing calculations, analyzing data, and crunching numbers. But what if you need to do a lot of that all at once? That’s where cloud service providers like AWS and Azure come in.

They can help you expand your processing power from just one computer to hundreds or even thousands of “nodes” in just a few minutes.

This is especially helpful for companies that need to do a lot of data analysis or graphics processing. Instead of buying a bunch of new hardware, they can just “rent” the resources they need from the cloud.

AWS and Azure both offer different tools to help you do this. AWS has EC2 instances, which are like virtual computers that you can use for all sorts of different applications.

Azure has similar tools like virtual machines (VMs) and Cloud Services. Both AWS and Azure also offer a bunch of other services to help you deploy and manage your applications, like storage, databases, analytics, networking, and security.

Service offered

AWS

Azure

Deployment, Monitoring, and Maintenance of Virtual Servers Amazon EC2 Virtual Machines or, VM Scale Sets
Registry for Docker Containers EC2 Container Registry Container Registry
Automatically Scale Instances AutoScaling allows scaling on its own. VM Scale Sets, Autoscaling, App Service Scale Capability
PaaS Elastic Beanstalk Cloud Services
System integration and backend logic processing AWS Lambda Event Grid

Web Jobs

Functions

AWS vs Azure: Storage

One of the biggest things cloud service providers like AWS and Azure are known for is their storage capabilities. When you’re running services in the cloud, you need a place to save the data you’re processing.

Both AWS and Azure are great at this, and they’ve been doing it for a while.

Service

AWS

Azure

Service Name S3 Azure Storage-Blobs
Hot S3 Standard Hot Blob Storage
Cool S3 Standard -Infrequent Access Cool Blob Storage
Cold Amazon Glacier Archive Blob Storage
Object Size Limits 5 TB 4.75 TB
# of Object Limits Unlimited Unlimited

 

Services

AWS

Azure

Service Name EBS Managed Disks
Volume Types Cold HDD

General Purpose SSD

PIOPs SSD

Throughput Optimized HDD

Standard Premium SSD
Availability SLA 99.9% 99.9%
IOPs/GB for SSD GP SSD -3

PIOPS SSD up to 50/GB.

1.8 to 4.9 – This is fixed based on the disk type.

AWS vs Azure: Which One With Best Price?

Both AWS and Azure offer free introductory tiers with some restrictions on usage, so you can try out their services before you decide to buy. They also offer credits to attract startups to their platforms. It means you can get started with using the cloud without having to spend a lot of money right away.

It’s worth noting that the cost of using the cloud can vary depending on how much you use it and which services you use. But overall, both AWS and Azure have a lot of options to help you control your costs and make the most of your budget.

AWS provides a pay-as-you-go model and charges per hour, while Azure’s pricing model is also pay-as-you-go, which charge per minute.

AWS can help you save more with increased usage- the more you use, the less you pay. You can purchase AWS instances based on one of the following models –

  • Reserved Instances – Paying an upfront cost based on the use; one can reserve an instance for 1 to 3 years.
  • On-demand Instances -Just pay for what you use without paying any upfront cost.
  • Spot Instances- Bid for extra capacity based on availability.

AWS vs Azure: Databases

Both Azure and AWS offer database services for all your needs, whether you’re into relational databases or NoSQL. They both got your back with highly available and durable options that automatically replicate, so you don’t have to worry about losing your data.

AWS is great for NoSQL and relational databases, and it’s perfect for big data with its EMR service, which makes it easy to set up a cluster and integrate other AWS services.

Azure also supports NoSQL and relational databases, and it’s got some cool big data options like Azure HDInsight and Azure table. Plus, it’s got the Cortana Intelligence Suite, which comes with Hadoop, Spark, Storm, and HBase, so you can do some serious analysis.

Amazon’s RDS supports six different databases like MariaDB, Amazon Aurora, MySQL, Microsoft SQL, PostgreSQL, and Oracle.

While Azure’s SQL database service is just based on MS SQL Server. Azure’s interface and tools make it easy to do all sorts of DB operations, but AWS gives you more control over your DB instances with a variety of instance types.

AWS vs Azure: Content Delivery and Networking Connectivity

A cloud service provider is like a big network with lots of partners and peeps using different products to connect data centers all around the world.

With AWS, you can build your own little network inside the cloud using something called Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). Inside this VPC, you can create your own route tables, private IP addresses, subnets and network gateways.

Azure also lets you make your own private network with Virtual Network (VNET). Both AWS and Azure give you options for firewalls and solutions to connect your own data centers to the cloud.

Service offered Amazon AWS Microsoft Azure
Secluded private cloud Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) Virtual Network (VNET)
Content Delivery Networks Across the Globe CloudFront Content Delivery Network (CDN)
Management of DNS names and records Route 53 Traffic Manager

Azure DNS

Connection to a Dedicated Private Network DirectConnect ExpressRoute

AWS vs Azure: Machine Learning

AWS has SageMaker and Azure has a machine learning studio to make building machine learning models a breeze. But what’s the difference?

Both AWS and Azure offer a managed service that handles the whole machine learning process from start to finish, but they go about it in different ways.

AWS’s SageMaker is all about code, while Azure’s machine learning studio has a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface where you can design your model on a canvas.

Azure’s Studio doesn’t require you to be a coding expert or worry about data engineering or other open-source libraries, unlike Amazon SageMaker. It’s like comparing apples to oranges, they both get the job done but in different ways.

AWS vs Azure: Job Opportunities

If you do a quick search on LinkedIn, you’ll see that there are more job opportunities for AWS (like 300,000+) compared to Azure (around 200,000+).

It might seem like AWS is the way to go, but don’t jump to conclusions just yet. Keep in mind that AWS was launched before Azure, so it makes sense that there are more companies using it.

This is also reflected in the market share we talked about earlier. So, don’t just look at the numbers, take into account the launch date too.