AWS vs. Azure: How are they different?
Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Azure are the leading cloud computing platforms that provide users with various services, basic features, and cloud capabilities. However, in several significant respects, they differ from one another. Sometimes choosing the best cloud service provider can be challenging; thus, you need to consider various aspects, including cloud storage pricing, data availability rates, security, deployment features, data transfer loss rate, etc. This article will discuss the differences between AWS and Azure.
Table of Contents
What is Amazon Web Services (AWS)?
What is Microsoft Azure?
Differences between AWS and Azure
What is Amazon Web Services (AWS)?
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the popular and widely used cloud computing platform offered by Amazon, which provides scalable, reliable, and cost-effective cloud computing services. AWS provides businesses with various services, including computing power, database storage, networking, security, developer tools, content delivery, machine learning, analytics, AI, mobile, and more. These services can assist in scaling and expanding their operations while also monitoring and maintaining their infrastructure. AWS is the very first cloud service provider, launched in 2006, and has become the greatest cloud platform among the other cloud platforms that are currently available. AWS offers a risk-free cloud platform that allows users to develop and manage applications. Millions of users use Amazon Web Services (AWS) to reduce costs and complexity, increase agility, and speed up innovation.
What is Microsoft Azure?
Microsoft Azure, commonly known as Azure, is the second most popular cloud computing platform offered by Microsoft. After four years of AWS, Microsoft Azure was introduced in 2010 as a competitor. Azure provides vast integrated cloud services and features for designing, constructing, deploying, testing, and monitoring cloud-based applications. These services and features include computing, security, networking, database, data storage, analytics, Internet of Things, and artificial intelligence. Azure helps enterprises to become scalable and broaden their efficiency in terms of their accessibility and performance.
Differences between AWS and Azure
Let us looks at the comparison between AWS and Azure in terms of services, availability zones, pricing, job trends, and more:
- Compute services: AWS provides services on a large and complex scale compared to Azure. Compute services are one of the essential services in cloud computing. AWS provides EC2 instances computing service that benefits developers by providing secure and scalable computing on demand. AWS’s other computational services are Elastic Beanstalk, AWS Lambda, ECS, etc. In contrast, Azure offers an Azure Virtual Machine (VM) service that helps developers design and build identical VMs. Azure offers other computational services such as Azure Container Service, Azure Kubernetes Services, Azure Functions, Azure App Services, etc.
- Storage services: Storage is also the cloud provider’s most important service. AWS and Azure provide reliable, secure, robust, and long-lasting storage services. AWS offers Simple Storage Service (S3), which is longest running than Azure. Some other storage services that AWS provides are Simple Queue Service (SQS), Elastic Block Store (EBS), buckets, and glacier. In contrast, Microsoft Azure offers blob storage, queue storage, table storage, disk storage, backup, and many more storage services.
- Database: The storage of information in modern software applications is always handled through a database. Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers a big data processing environment that is more advanced in comparison to Microsoft Azure. They can manage structured and unstructured data using their specialized database services. AWS provides various database services, such as Amazon Relational Database Service, Redshift, Amazon Aurora, DynamoDB, etc. On the other hand, Azure offers database services such as SQL, MySQL, SQL data warehousing, document DB, and many more.
- Pricing: The pricing methods for AWS and Azure both offer a pay-as-you-go pricing structure. AWS charges customers on an hourly basis, while Azure charges customers on a minute basis. Azure is more expensive than AWS. However, Azure offers much greater flexibility regarding short-term subscription plans.
- Availability zone: When selecting a cloud provider, the availability zone is the first thing that should be taken into consideration. Availability zones safeguard the files and applications from an isolated data center failure. AWS has 66 availability zones and an additional 12 pipelines distributed across geographical regions. In comparison, Azure has 140 availability zones and is available in 54 regions allotted in the Azure region.
- Networking: AWS uses Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), which enables users to create their private networks within the cloud. Users can create route tables, subnets, private IP address ranges, and network gateways within a Virtual Private Cloud. In comparison, Azure uses Azure Virtual Network (VNet), often known as VNet, which enables users to create private networks inside the cloud. Azure VNet is used to run Virtual Machines (VMs) and cloud-based applications in the cloud. Within a VNet, a user can create subnets, route tables, VPN gateways, and private IP address ranges.
- Job opportunity and salary: As of this now, AWS has a larger percentage of the market share in terms of cloud adoption than Azure. AWS covers 32% of the market. Therefore, there is a demand for more AWS specialists in the market. After AWS, Microsoft Azure is quickly becoming another popular option for cloud computing due to the rapid acceleration of its adoption rate. Azure covers 19% of the market. Compared to becoming an Azure Solution Architect, working as an AWS Solution Architect will provide you with more job prospects. An AWS Specialist makes an average of $59,601/yr, whereas Azure Specialists make an average of $94,655/yr, according to Glassdoor.
Conclusion: Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure have immense value in the service market and are considered the industry’s leading cloud service providers. Both providers offer all the necessary features, including scalability, security, data integrity, high availability, and easy operation to their customers. You can choose AWS if you are seeking for Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) or a comprehensive collection of tools and services. And if you are seeking Windows integration or a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) cloud provider, then Azure is a good option.
How can InfosecTrain help?
Both cloud computing platforms, AWS and Azure, have their strengths and limitations. Enroll in InfosecTrain’s AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner and AZ-900: Microsoft Azure Fundamentals certification training courses to gain a fundamental understanding of AWS and Azure concepts and services if you are new in this field. The AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner training course will assist you in developing a thorough understanding of the AWS cloud platform and concepts so you can demonstrate your expertise and receive recognition in the field. The Azure Fundamentals training course will help you acquire a comprehensive understanding of Microsoft Azure’s various components. You will comprehend the core concepts of cloud computing services and terminologies.
Ruchi Bisht
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