Today, there are several different cloud services, and they have become a central part of modern IT infrastructure. Companies worldwide have moved away from traditional IT environments in favor of the flexibility and scalability that cloud services offer.
Read more about advantages of the cloud.
The cloud is not a single service but a collection of services that together create a complex yet essential infrastructure for businesses. These services cover everything from database storage and computing power to machine learning and IoT functionality.
There is a vast array of cloud providers, with giants like Microsoft(Azure), Google (Google Cloud), and Amazon (AWS) dominating the market. Inaddition to these, several other players such as Oracle, IBM, and Alibaba alsooffer their own cloud solutions.
Here, we focus on the two largest cloud platform providers – AWS and Azure.
Azure, originating from Microsoft’s ecosystem, offers seamless integration with Windows Server, Active Directory, Microsoft 365, and SQLServer. It is the fastest-growing cloud service in recent years, although AWS remains the market leader.
Azure provides services within Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS),Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS) – just like AWS.It is an especially attractive choice for companies already using Microsoft products and looking for a smooth integration between their systems.
AWS is the market leader and is considered the most comprehensive cloud platform. AWS offers a vast range of cloud services, including computing power, storage, databases, and analytics.
It is one of the most popular cloud services among startups and smaller businesses, thanks to its flexibility and broad ecosystem. Generally, AWS is seen as more scalable, due to its flexible architecture, extensive service offerings, and global infrastructure.
Both cloud platforms offer similar fundamental services and have aglobal presence with data centers worldwide. However, they sometimes usedifferent terminology and concepts for the same functions, which is good to beaware of.
Since Azure is owned and operated by Microsoft, there is a naturalconnection to their products, making it a preferred choice for many businesseswith an existing Microsoft infrastructure. However, some licensing terms anddependencies on Microsoft’s platforms can limit flexibility and certain usecases.
AWS, on the other hand, is platform-agnostic and provides greaterfreedom in choosing technologies, operating systems, and frameworks. This makesAWS a more flexible and independent cloud platform, often making it the firstchoice for businesses that are not already locked into Microsoft’s ecosystem.
Historically, AWS has been quicker to launch new services and has a broader service catalog overall. However, in recent years, Azure has made significant strides, particularly in AI, hybrid cloud, and integrated enterprise solutions.
AWS is generally more popular among developers and DevOps teams, including those of us at Meta Bytes. However, we use both services – the choice depends on our clients and their specific needs.
Patrik, Meta Bytes' Head of Operations, is a strong advocate for AWS:
AWS is built for the cloud, while Azure is built from scratch on Windows Server and enterprise environments. If you don't have a cloud service and don't already use most Microsoft products, we run almost exclusively on AWS for our customers.
Personally, Patrik also prefers AWS – for him, Azure isn’t even anoption. But it should also be mentioned that he is a big fan of Linux (whichAWS has significantly better support for).
Rumor has it that he has muttered a few colorful comments about Microsoft’s ecosystem on more than one occasion...;)
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