Cloud computing is improving our world in tremendous ways. Companies from all across the globe are taking full advantage of the myriad capabilities offered by providers of this state-of-the-art technology – and it’s not difficult to see why.
Although the cloud can be quite complex and an intricate concept to fully understand, there is absolutely no denying the far-reaching and overall positive effect it has on enterprises of all sizes and levels of maturity.
Offering major cost reductions, powerful security, improved scalability and flexibility, unlimited storage capacity and even a focus on being environmentally-friendly – the cloud is here to stay and ultimately encourage our transition into Industry 4.0.
Once you’ve come to terms with the inefficiency of legacy technology and you’re finally ready to experience what the cloud has to offer, then it’s time to look at and consider the options that the different cloud providers have to offer.
No need to worry. Because we’ve got you covered.
We’ll be looking at two of the biggest cloud giants, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). It will help you figure out which of them would serve your enterprise best. And who knows, you might just find that they both do.
Quick Reminder: What is AWS and GCP, again?
In case you’ve forgotten, cloud migration is the decision to move from traditional IT systems and infrastructures to modern ones. You essentially move from outdated and impractical technology to relevant and more efficient technology.
Your data, software and IT infrastructure are all moved to an online platform. One that offers unlimited storage, flexibility, security and secure backup.
(Read More on Cloud Migration: Here)
Hundreds of different providers dominate the cloud industry. Some of which are industry frontrunners and others that are competing to get to the top. This leaves you with a whole lot of choices, but no clue as to which is better and why.
(Spoiler Alert: There isn’t necessarily a ‘better’ one, each has their own unique offering.)
Instead of listing and dissecting the hundreds that exist, we’re going to take a look at two of the three largest (and most popular) cloud providers that you can choose from:
AWS
Amazon considers AWS as “the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform… Millions of customers—including the fastest-growing startups, largest enterprises, and leading government agencies—are using AWS to lower costs, become more agile, and innovate faster”.
Simply put, they are the largest cloud services platform available and are used by thousands of businesses around the world. They offer powerful security, unlimited data storage, fast content delivery and a variety of services that are aimed at improving the overall approach to IT practices and big data.
They currently hold the largest market share at 32% (with Azure at 19% and Google at 7%). Proving that they are highly revered among thousands of organisations worldwide.
What is GCP?
According to TechTarget, “Google Cloud Platform is a suite of public cloud computing services offered by Google. The platform includes a range of hosted services for compute, storage and application development that run on Google hardware”.
GCP provides services that allow users to store and utilise their data in a range of effective ways. Like other cloud platforms, they provide a modern IT approach to store, manage and extract value from your data. And also improve the overall efficiency within your existing IT operations.
Considering the fact that Google uses their own platform to operate and maintain massive services like Youtube, Search, Maps and Gmail, it makes it blatantly obvious that it’s well-suited for enterprises that deal with global, high-traffic content.
What Are The Similarities between these providers?
Other than the fact that both providers offer similar cloud service capabilities (networking, compute and storage) and an infrastructure as a service (IaaS) model, there are a number of key similarities that define their status as cloud providers.
Similar Services
Both AWS and GCP share a range of common public cloud features. From autoscaling, compliance and identity management capabilities to self-service functionality, real-time resource provisioning and powerful security.
Modern Technological Integration
With new technologies setting the scene for Industry 4.0, their tools and services include focus on areas like serverless computing and the Internet of Things (IoT). This means that users are able to create high performance computing environments, as well as build, test and deploy software (for mobile or PC).
AI & ML Features
Both providers offer artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) functionality for writing, testing, building and deploying models and algorithms. This allows for features like automation, image recognition, deep learning and neural networking (biometrics) and chatbots.
With plenty of other similarities in terms of networking, storage, compute and databases, these providers all offer powerful features and services aimed at making your IT operations far more agile, effective and easier to work with.
So What Are the Differentiators?
Veritis looked at and compared the differences between AWS, Azure and GCP. While comparing only two of the three providers, it’s interesting to find that while all of the same features are covered by each platform, the amount of services that they offer differs.
Both AWS and GCP offer features like compute, backup and storage services, as well as AI and ML functionality, but they differ in the amount of apps/software that they offer for those features. Consider their AI/ML features: AWS offers 12 different applications, while GCP offers 9.
Seeing as they all pretty much offer the same features, differences can be found in how effective and reliable their services actually prove to be.
Compute Power
With regards to compute power, both match up quite well against each other. To create and manage virtual machines, AWS uses their Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and GCP uses Google Compute Engine (GCE).
According to Upguard, AWS comes out on top where computing capacity is concerned. They have far more data centers to offer and thus have more access to hardware, resources and facilities. Amazon even won a contract back in 2013 to create a private cloud, named GovCloud, for the U.S. government.
Test findings by VPSBenchmarks show that AWS outperforms GCP in a variety of different ways:
- Better handling of HTTP request rates.
- Higher overall CPU performance.
- Much faster network transfer times with higher download and upload speeds.
- Greater CPU endurance in performance tests based on extensive usage.
Storage
Storage capabilities between the two providers are also quite similar. They use a similar approach (storing data in the form of buckets or objects) and have the same price model (charged based on demand).
Both GCP and AWS have a variety of storage services that offer similar features. For example, GCP calls their main data storage service Google Cloud Storage (Regional and Multi-regional) and Amazon calls it Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3).
With regards to storage, however, GCP proved better in the following ways:
- Better storage capacity and functionality for virtual machines.
- Faster and more efficient access to archived data.
Pricing
Where cost is concerned, GCP tends to offer better (and more flexible) pricing options. And while AWS provides more RAM in certain instances, the victor is GCP in terms of overall cost.
Consider the price comparison between small and large instances:
Smallest instance – 2 CPUs, 8GB RAM (AWS = $69/month; GCP = $52/month).
Largest instance – 128 CPUS, 3.84TB of RAM at $3.97/hour (AWS); 160 CPUs, 3.75TB of RAM at $5.32/hour (GCP).
It’s also important to mention the fact that GCP offers a pay-per-second billing plan, whereas AWS offers a par-per-minute plan. This means that GCP is able to save you much more in the long-run.
The Choice is Yours
Your decision to choose an ideal cloud provider will come to shape the digital transformation journey that you’re currently on.
While you consider the fantastic compute power that AWS offers, or the competitive pricing and effective storage options that GCP entices you with, your final choice ultimately relies on the needs of your organisation.
If you can see the benefit in both providers, then perhaps it’s worth considering a hybrid cloud (or multi-cloud) strategy. It means effectively using the best of both worlds.
Don’t know where to start? Need to know more?
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