Difference Between Microsoft Azure and AWS
Cloud services platforms like Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS) are well-known for offering various tools for a business. Both of these platforms help in providing flexible data storage, high computing power, service management, hosting web applications, etc. that help a business grow.
Microsoft Azure vs AWS
The main difference between Microsoft Azure and AWS is that Microsoft Azure offers better hybrid cloud services such that enterprises with the help of cloud instances can integrate onsite servers whereas AWS is known to have better reach than Microsoft Azure when it comes to government cloud offerings.
Microsoft Azure is a start-up-friendly cloud platform as it provides very high performance at a low cost. It is not a good option if one needs to archive data as Microsoft Azure doesn’t provide the data archiving and retrieval option for long-term data.
On the other hand, AWS has a “Pay for EBS Volume” pricing model which is the best in the market for handling big data. It has a flexible data storage system in Compute Cloud which means businesses can expand or constrict their storage as per need. AWS also provides the long-term data archiving and retrieval feature.
Comparison Table Between Microsoft Azure and AWS
| Parameters of Comparison | Microsoft Azure | AWS |
| Storage facility | Temporary storage is offered through D drive. It has an option of site recovery and for additional archiving purpose has Azure Backup. | Temporary storage allocated at the beginning of an instance and gets destroyed in termination. Glacier provides data archiving services. |
| Computing power | Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) is used and the companies must specify the extent of cores and memory. | There are both pre-configured machine images and the liberty of users to configure and customize their own VMs. |
| Pricing models | Azure charges their customers on a per minute basis and for short term pricing models offers pre-paid or monthly options. | AWS charges on hourly basis and has three options on demand, reserved, and spot. |
| Security | Microsoft Azure grants permission to access a whole account. | AWS security grants permission for defined roles and thus gives access to control particular features. |
| Hybrid cloud ecosystem | Powerful hybrid cloud services with Hybrid SQL server, Azure Stack, etc. | Offers Snowball Edge, a 100TB hard drive that allows a company to transfer data between cloud and data centers. |
| User friendly | Azure is a Windows platform so for a Windows user there is nothing extra to learn. | AWS has a broader ecosystem than Azure and also provides more features and configurations. |
What is Microsoft Azure?
Microsoft Azure is a well-known public cloud computing platform. It uses Virtual Network (VNET) which gives the users freedom to create isolated networks, private IP addresses, and network gateways.
Though Microsoft Azure is one of the best options for small businesses and startups due to its low cost, the storage system for big data is not satisfying and has many bugs. In that case, premium storage is required which increases the cost.
There is a variety of storage services offered by Microsoft Azure which includes Page Blobs for block storage, Block Blobs, and Files for object storage, Azure Drive, Table Storage, etc. Azure Table and HDInsight provide support for relational database management systems (RDMS) like NoSQL and Big Data.
The number of options available to a Microsoft Azure user for languages, frameworks, and tools is multiple which allows a business to choose what’s best for its company and clients.
Microsoft Azure also has several compliance offerings like HIPAA, FIPS, ITAR, and claims that only the screened person can have access to a government-level cloud system.
The disadvantage of using Microsoft Azure is the platform is mostly fit for the Windows environment and when it comes to open-source, the platform is less flexible. Moreover, the platform is not ideal for a big data ecosystem and has several glitches.
What is AWS?
AWS stands for Amazon Web Services which is a cloud services platform currently dominating the global marketplace. With Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) provided by AWS, users can create intracloud isolated networks.
AWS is known for providing the best big data ecosystem among all cloud services platforms. It is also flexible across the open-source operating systems and thus provides Linux users with better open-source integrations.
The platform of AWS provides a lot of features and customizations choices for its users with the help of many third-party integrations.
AWS is not known as the ideal provider of a hybrid cloud ecosystem. But for storage purposes, it offers ample options like S3, Buckets, EBS, CloudFront, AWS Import/Export, etc.
AWS uses the pay-as-you-go model as its pricing model and offers three different choices to the customers. The on-demand model allows users to pay for what is used without any upfront cost. One can go for the Reserve model to reserve an instance for 1 to 3 years. The last model is Spot where the customers have to bid for the extra capacity available.
Main Differences Between Microsoft Azure and AWS
Conclusion
AWS is currently dominating the cloud services platform market with a comparatively larger market share than Microsoft Azure.
The users can choose between Microsoft Azure and AWS based on which features are of main priority to the company.
Cloud services platforms are used by almost every business today to secure private data, easy data transfer, and archiving historic data.
References
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