Cloud networking is a type of IT infrastructure in which some or all of an organization's network capabilities and resources are hosted in a public or private cloud platform, managed in-house or by a service provider.
Platforms like AWS (Amazon Web Services) and Azure are the top 2 cloud service providers among many other service providers like Google, Alibaba ,rackspace and many more.
Both AWS and Azure are the 2 leading competitors in the cloud service industry. Big companies have adopted AWS and Azure as their trusted cloud computing platforms.
Today we will be discussing AWS to Azure service comparison from networking features to security features, from market share to pricing every possible question of yours will be covered in this article.
What Are The Key Differences Between Aws And Azure?
In the cloud Industry both Aws and azure are taking up their places on the global level but still they have differences that may become an important factor for you to choose among both.
Aws offers almost 200 services in the database, storage, computation, maintenance, and trouble shooting domains while Azure also has 100 plus different services in these domains.
Down below are the listed differences in their services and features:
Computation Features
Computation power of a cloud service is referred to as how efficiently it runs the processes of your application. In other words how powerful servers and hardwares they have to perform your tasks in less time.
AWS provides you maintenance, monitoring, and deployment services by using EC2 mechanism (Elastic Compute Cloud) and because of this Aws will take a minute to launch an instance to run a virtual machine on cloud.
Azure provides you all these computation services by VM (Virtual Machine) technologies and it is slightly slower to launch an instance as compared to Aws.
Storage Capacity
Another advantage of using cloud services is that they provide you with wide storage capabilities for your application. A simple example is your Google drive where you can store your documents, photo, and other files without even using a single Mb of your hardware.
AWS uses Amazon S3 (Storage Simple Service) for storage in this mechanism it stores your data in objects and all these objects are then put in the bucket.
Azure uses Blob storage. Blob stands for Binary large objects, it is Microsoft’s provided service for storage in Azure. Azure’s blob storage is less expensive than Amazon's S3 but S3 supports a larger variety of applications.
Availability
Availability zones refers to the physical location where the data centers with actual hardwares are located. Availability regions refers to the geographical location in which one or more zones are located.
AWS has availability in 96 zones that is they have their physical data centers in 96 different areas and in 30 regions in the world whereas Azure has the largest availability among all the cloud providers with 60 zones in 60 regions.
Azure is catering to lesser zones as compared to AWS but in more regions, this means Azure has a better global level infrastructure as compared to AWS. Both the platforms are planning to spread their availability zones to a higher number.
Database Services
AWS provides database services as a Relational database such as MySql, Oracle, and DynamoDB. In such relational databases operations are done automatically like updates, backlogs, and security.
Azure provides only SQL database service so if your application’s database is not in SQL then you will have to change it to SQL to be compatible in Azure. Also updates and backlogs would not happen automatically you will have to configure everything.
Troubleshooting
If any error occurs in your application then for troubleshooting you need to be able to track back API calls and AWS stores these calls as log in their service called CloudTrail.
In Azure this similar troubleshooting service is known as Azure Operational Insight that keeps the logs of your API calls of your deployed application.
Monitoring Features
You can track the performance of your application and resources through the monitoring services that cloud service providers give you.
These monitoring services give you data and insight about your applications, instances, traffic on particular instances and much more. You can manage, monitor and control your application through these tools.
Azure offers a tool named Application Insight while AWS provides you the tool Cloud Watch for the similar service.
Networking Features
Networking plays a backbone role in the cloud services because that is the biggest advantage of the cloud that you can access your data from anywhere at any time.
So, providing you with a strong set of reliable gateways and peering is the main job of a cloud service provider.
All the cloud providers provide network services by Virtual Networks, in AWS it is called Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) while Azure uses VNet.
Security Features
Security is another important feature that people seek when moving to cloud services. But there is a concept of shared responsibility model that states what are you responsible for and what areas of security the cloud service provider is responsible for.
Another security mechanism that Azure and AWS uses IAM which is Identity Access Management that is granting access controls on the basis of the role of the user.
One major difference is that Azure offers privileged access management that is built-in while AWS has no built-in privileged access tools, they use the third party Privileged access management.
Popularity And Market Share Between Azure And Aws
Azure came into the market in the year 2010 which is 4 years after AWS was launched. This is also the main reason for AWS to have the leading market share. AWS is being used by a huge number of companies while Azure also has a leading share in the market.
As of 2021 the market share for Azure is positioned at 22% while with a little lead, AWS is at 33%. Other cloud service providers are also capturing some shares in the market but Azure and AWS are the market leaders with more than 50% share of the overall market.
Billing And Pricing Comparison Between Azure And Aws
Both the azure and aws works in Pay as you go model for their products’ pricing. Pay as you go approach means that you only pay for the service that you need and for as long as you use it. You do not have to get into any long term contract.
Also both the cloud service providers give you the chance to save money if you want a 1 to 3 year contract. If you stay committed to their fixed pricing until the contract period then you will be offered lesser prices for the same services.
Both service providers will be billing you in per minute usage of the tools. In AWS hourly prices range from $0.011/hour to $0.27/hour while in Azure charges in minutes for VMs.
Why Is Azure Preferred Over Aws?
Because of the compatibility with most .net applications. Many older and matured applications are based on .Net so for migrating these apps on the cloud Azure is more compatible and you do not have to make changes to your application’s framework.
Another main reason that Azure is preferred over AWS is that they provide you with the flexibility to work with a hybrid approach. That means you can use your local servers and cloud as a combination for your best suited needs.
Azure is more value effective in terms of cost and agreements if you have already signed Microsoft’s licenses and enterprise agreements.
Final Thoughts about AWS To Azure Services Comparison
Azure and AWS are the leaders in the cloud industry and both are continuously growing and improving their services.
Both cloud service providers have no doubt many benefits like reliability, automatic failover, cost effectiveness if you have large applications, database as service, and high availability architecture.
You can also look for career options in both Azure and AWS by doing certain certifications. The jobs of Azure and AWS are highly paying and are trending in the market.
If you own a business then you need to ask yourself a few questions according to your business needs such as what amount of computation power you need or the infrastructure of your company.
