Fueled by the shift to hybrid and remote work environments and the requirement to digitally transform organization during the global pandemic, the adoption of cloud computing has reached an all-time high. Cloud services are in very high demand in the current scenario. But, what exactly is a cloud service provider?
A cloud service provider is typically a third-party company that offers a cloud-based platform for application, infrastructure, or storage services. A cloud service provider generally establishes public cloud platforms, manages private cloud platforms, and offers on-demand cloud computing services such as:
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)
Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)
Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service (DRaaS)
What Is a Public Cloud?
In a public cloud, the cloud service provider owns and manages all hardware, software, networking, and storage infrastructure. The public cloud infrastructure is solely based on virtualization tech to offer scalable, efficient computing storage and power. The public cloud provider makes these resources accessible to consumers over the internet.
Since you need to pay only for the amount of cloud services you utilize, based on your organizational requirements, adopting cloud computing can help reduce business costs compared to operating and owning on-premises datacenters.
Cloud adoption also offers businesses with flexibility and scalability by restricting them to on-premises servers' physical limitations. Additionally, you can also take advantage of the reliability of multiple cloud data centers and customizable and responsive and load balancing that evolves with your changing demands.
This blog will compare the three leading public cloud providers, namely Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Google Cloud.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) Overview
A subsidiary of Amazon, AWS was established in 2006 and offered on-demand cloud computing services on a pay-as-you-go, metered, basis. It is one of the most broadly adopted and comprehensive public cloud platforms universally.
Some cloud functionalities offered by AWS that can help enterprises scale and grow include:
Compute power
Developer tools
Security, identity, and compliance
Networking and content delivery
Analytics
Migration
Database storage
Artificial intelligence
Customer engagement
Internet of Things
Desktop and app streaming
Advantages of Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Let's navigate through some of the significant advantages of AWS:
Ease of Sign-Up
One of the key advantages of adopting AWS is that the onboarding process is impeccable. All you need to offer are a few essential credentials, and you can carry on. There is no requirement to sign an agreement. If you're in dilemma, you can opt for the one-year free tier that involves the most popular AWS services free at specific limit.
Scalability and Elasticity
AWS gives the Auto Scaling service that allows you to scale up, down quickly, as per the changing business needs.
Along with scalability, you can also grasp the Elastic Load Balancer service to distribute your incoming app traffic across various different targets, including containers, messaging services, instances, IP addresses, and more.
Access to a Diverse Range of Tools
AWS gives a wide range of dynamic services like elastic compute cloud (EC2), virtual private cloud (VPC), simple storage service (S3), relational database service, AWS Lambda, and more.
Greater Security
AWS provides end-to-end security for its cloud infrastructure by deploying software, operational and physical measures wherever required.
Microsoft Azure Overview
Generally referred to as simply Azure, Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing service introduced by tech-giant Microsoft in 2010 for deploying, testing, building, and managing applications and services.
Some of the key functionalities that Azure are as follows:
Application and infrastructure migration
Computing power
Caching
Media services
Mobile services
Business Analytics
SQL database
Database storage
Content delivery network (CDN)
Virtual services
Benefits of Azure Cloud?
Some of the significant advantages of Azure Cloud are listed below:
High Scalability and Availability
Azure cloud offers high availability and scalability to its users. Moreover, it is well-equipped to scale down or up, depending on the changing requirements of business. Enterprises can modify the computing power required with just a few clicks.
Analytics and Intelligence Capabilities
One of the prime advantages of Azure is that it offers NoSQL and SQL data services and offers built-in support for gaining meaningful and deep insights into the strategies that organizations can adopt to improve their decision-making and operations. Additionally, it might be interesting to note that Azure is the only cloud platform that provides unique capabilities like machine learning, cognitive APIs, bots, and Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS).
Compliance, Security and Disaster Recovery
At present, Azure is one of the most secured cloud platforms in the market. It has emerged as the preferred cloud platform for high-risk industries such as government agencies and healthcare with its array of compliance certifications. Azure offers high-end protection for its consumers and provides additional services, like multifactor authentication and enterprise-grade disaster recovery capabilities that help recover and secure the critical business data with minimum downtime.
Google Cloud Platform Overview
Established by Google in 2008, Google Cloud is a suite of cloud computing services that operates on the same infrastructure utilized by Google internally for its most popular end-user products, including YouTube, Gmail, Google Search and file storage.
Major functionalities of Google Cloud include:
Big data services
Compute engines
Live migration
Internet of Things (IoT)
Cloud management
Machine intelligence
Networking
Cloud storage
Identity and security
What Are the Advantages of Google Cloud?
Google Cloud provides a host of advantages such as:
Google-Grade Security
One of the significant benefits of Google Cloud is that it runs on Google's flawless security model that features an end-to-end security process, formulated as a result of over 15 years of experience putting focus on customer security on apps like Google Apps and Gmail.
Live Migration
Like AWS and Azure, Google Cloud provides live migration of VMs. As such, there is no conversion in cloud performance even when the Virtual Machies are being migrated. Since your Virtual Machines will always be running and up, the Google Cloud engineers are better deployed to resolve updating and patching issues more efficiently.
Environment-Friendly
Compared to typical data centers, GC data centers run on relatively low energy and utilize 100% renewable energy wherever available.
Final Thoughts
No matter which cloud platform you select, you need to manage and optimize your usage to keep costs under control. Want to know how Polestar Solutions can help you with that? Request a demo today!