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.