Both Azure and AWS are incredibly popular options when considering public cloud providers. Holding a market share of 22% and 33% respectively, they are the top two competitors in the market. They both provide a vast selection of features and offer a wide array of services crucial for businesses of every size.
This article will closely examine the key differences between Azure and AWS to help you make a well-informed decision about which platform best suits your business needs.
What Is AWS?
Amazon Web Services is a cloud computing platform providing users with a wide range of services, including storage, computing power, content delivery, and more. AWS is among the most popular cloud platforms available and is utilized by major global companies such as Netflix, Airbnb, and Facebook.
What Is Azure?
Azure is a cloud computing service developed by Microsoft for building, testing, deploying, and managing applications and services through a worldwide network of Microsoft-managed data centers. Azure is a leading cloud provider and supports a robust collection of integrated tools.
Key Differences Between Azure and AWS
Some of the key differences between Azure and AWS are highlighted below:
Computing Power Provisioning and Usage
One of the primary challenges that arise with computing is scalability. To address this, AWS utilizes EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud), which enables businesses to adjust their computing power up or down based on their requirements by adding or removing instances.
This offers a budget-friendly way of handling computing power as businesses are only billed for their actual usage.
Conversely, Azure utilizes VMs (Virtual Machines). These VMs employ virtual scale sets for autoscaling.
The key distinction between EC2 and VMs is that the former allows for customization for various uses, while the latter requires integration with other cloud-deployment models to operate and accommodate multiple uses. This can become a costly approach to provisioning computing power since you are charged for the VM even when it’s inactive.
Storage and Database Services: Azure vs AWS
Amazon utilizes a diverse range of storage and database services, including Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service), Amazon EBS (Elastic Block Store), and Amazon Glacier. These services excel in storing and retrieving data.
On the other hand, Azure utilizes Blob Storage, Disk Storage, and File Storage. These services are also capable of effectively storing and retrieving data.
AWS provides users with advantages such as greater scalability, security, structured and unstructured data support, and options for both relational and non-relational databases. Azure, however, offers storage in Azure Tables, Azure Blogs, and Azure Files. Consequently, these services are not as efficient in storing and retrieving data compared to Amazon’s offerings.
AWS Security Services VS Azure Security Services
AWS utilizes Identity and Access Management (IAM) to regulate resource access. IAM provides a secure method for granting users access to AWS resources.
A key difference in Azure: it employs Active Directory (AD) and Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) to manage access. AD serves as a centralized user store for managing permissions and granting access to Azure resources. RBAC is a detailed authorization system providing granular control over user actions within Azure.
While both IAM and AD offer robust security, IAM is more versatile and provides a wider range of features than AD. This is why AWS should be considered the ultimate managed WP solution. You’ll benefit from security features such as IAM roles, Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), and Security Token Service (STS). These features work together to safeguard your site against all types of cybersecurity threats.
Monitoring and Logging Services
AWS utilizes CloudWatch to monitor your resources and applications, offering visibility into resource utilization, application performance, and operational health.
Azure utilizes Azure Monitor for monitoring resources and applications. Azure Monitor also provides insights into resource utilization, application performance, and operational well-being.
Both CloudWatch and Azure Monitor are effective tools for monitoring resources and applications.
Networking Services: Azure vs AWS
AWS delivers networking services via Amazon VPC (Virtual Private Cloud), enabling businesses to establish a private network within the cloud. This is one of the key differentiators for AWS.
Azure’s networking services consist of Azure VPN Gateway, Azure Load Balancer, and Azure Traffic Manager. These services empower businesses to create and manage virtual networks.
Machine Learning (ML) Modeling
AWS provides machine learning services through Amazon SageMaker. This empowers businesses to build, train, and deploy ML models.
Azure offers machine learning services through Azure Machine Learning Studio, enabling businesses to build, train, and deploy ML models.
Both AWS and Azure offer machine learning services. However, SageMaker is more comprehensive and feature-rich compared to Azure Machine Learning Studio.
Additionally, in terms of user-friendliness, SageMaker is simpler to use because it eliminates the need for infrastructure provisioning. In contrast, Azure requires you to provide infrastructure and set up a machine learning environment before utilizing Azure Machine Learning Studio.
Azure Vs. AWS: Which is Better?
In truth, there is no definitive winner between Azure and AWS. Both offer exceptional services that businesses can leverage to build, deploy, and scale their applications.
The best choice ultimately depends on your specific business requirements, budget, and preferences. It’s also crucial to consider the technical expertise of your team when making this decision.