The surge in cloud computing services has tremendously revolutionized the IT infrastructure. Considering its cost competitiveness and various other major benefits, enterprises have readily acquired cloud infrastructure, leaving behind traditional infrastructures. The reason AWS Vs Azure exists. As per Gartner’s predictions, the worldwide spending on cloud services is expected to reach heights in 2023, i.e. from $490.3 billion to $591.8 billion.
This article will shed light on the importance of two lead cloud service providers i.e. Amazon Web Service(AWS) and Azure and the qualities of each that make them stand apart. AWS, as compared to Azure, is leading the market with a wide range of cloud capabilities, taking up about 32% of the cloud service market.
Let’s find out in detail about the two.
Amazon Web Services:
AWS, a subsidiary of the tech giant, Amazon, is said to have taken over the cloud service market by storm. Replacing conventional host structures, AWS has massively revolutionized the cloud market by offering highly cost competitive services. Leading the market for a reason, AWS, has all the necessary cloud features required by organizations to thrive in the market. Offering more than 200 services, to not only startups, but leading Government and global agencies as well, AWS has an advantage over Azure in terms of government cloud products.
Click here to find out more about AWS.
Microsoft Azure:
Also known as Azure, is the second leading cloud service provider with a market share of about 21%. Azure, Microsoft’s cloud computing infrastructure, is equipped with built-in capabilities to analyze, support and deploy various applications and services. Through the provision of various cloud services, including, computing, networking, analytics and storage etc., Azure is majorly beneficial in the management of applications through Microsoft operated data centers. One significant reason for it to be counted among the leading cloud service providers, is its extensive Toolkit that is subjected to constant growth among the rapid technological advancements.
What Makes the Two Stand Apart?
Although AWS and Microsoft Azure support almost the same functionalities, they differ majorly in some aspects.
Let’s have a detailed look at the parameters that make the two stand apart.
Comparison Chart
| Parameters | Microsoft Azure | AWS |
| Launched | 2010 | 2006 |
| Market Share | 31% Share of the global computing market. | 11% Share from the worldwide market. |
| Storage Services | Blob StorageContainersAzure DriveTable StorageTablesStorage Stats | S3BucketsEBSSDBdomainsEasy to useSQSCloudFrontAWS Import/Export |
| Database Services | MS SQLSQL Sync | MySQLOracleDynamoDB |
| Deployment Services | Cspkg (fancy zip file)Upload via portal or API via blob storageCourse-grained updates“click to scale.”More magic | Amazon Web ServicesAmazon Machine Instance (AMI)Traditional Deployment ModelsFine-grained updatesElastic BeanstalkCloud Formation |
| Networking Services | Automatic IP assignmentLoad-balancingAzure ConnectBalancingEndpoints defined in csdef/cscfg | IP/Elastic IP/ELBVirtual Private CloudRoute 53ELBFirewall heavily configurable |
| Type of Cloud | Virtual Network | Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) |
| Government Cloud | Limited reach for government cloud offerings. | AWS has an edge as far as government cloud offerings. |
| Maturity | The less mature environment for big data. | More mature cloud environment for big data. |
| Security | Provides security by offering permissions on the whole account. | Security is provided using defined roles with permission control features. |
Source: https://www.guru99.com/azure-vs-aws.html
To get into a bit more detail, let us learn about the two by segregating them in terms of Computing Power, Networking and Database Capabilities.
- Computing Power:
Scalability is one significant element of cloud computing and often emerges to be a primary issue. AWS has taken the lead in this regard by using Elastic Cloud Computing (EC2) that supports customisation. EC2 can be tailored to specific needs i.e the resource footprint can be easily increased or decreased as per demand. Moreover, ECS allows the users to construct virtual machines i.e VMs, pick or modify pe-configured Machine Images (MIs) in terms of power, size and memory.
Comparatively, Microsoft Azure, allows the users to create a VM from a virtual hard disc (VHD). What mainly differentiates the two, is the customization that EC2 offers, whereas Azure can be merged with other cloud deployment tools.
- Networking:
Networking is the key parameter in cloud solutions and every cloud user demands a secure and isolated network. Complying with the requirement, AWS allows its users to generate isolated private networks using its Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). Elastic Load Balancing is then used for smooth operations during connectivity. Whereas, Azure supports Virtual network, i.e. a Virtual private Network (VPN) instead of VPC.
- Database Capabilities:
The two leading cloud service providers offer a great range of database services for handling structured and unstructured information. AWS and Azure offer Amazon Relational Database Service and SQL, respectively for durability. AWS users have the advantage of RDS being compatible with six other databases, Whereas SQL server database solution is based solely on Microsoft SQL.
Conclusion:
Based upon the discussion above, both the leading cloud service providers appear to be excellent when it comes to their respective features. Amazon is comparatively flexible and supports a wide range of features and Azure, known for its remarkable integration capabilities. is great when it comes to hybrid cloud.