AWS vs Azure – a quick comparison

Research has shown that about 77 percent of businesses have had at least one application or their entire infrastructure in the cloud.

This trend is projected to continue given the flexibility and scalability that cloud computing offers to businesses. This is not to mention the competitive edge it offers you over other companies that may not be using cloud services.

While migrating to cloud computing is easy, most businesses find it difficult to choose between the two giant cloud service providers: Microsoft’s Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS).

To make an informed decision, here’s an AWS vs. Azure comparison guide:

1. Storage

AWS offers temporary Elastic Block Storage that’s allocated when an instance starts and terminated when it ends. Other storage solutions include the Elastic File System, import/export of large data volume, and Storage Gateway.

Microsoft’s Azure offerings include the Azure Blob storage, Azure core storage services, and the Table and File storage. It also allows for the transfer of huge data through its Import Export site. For data backup and archiving, users can utilize Azure backup and site recovery.

2. Computing

Both AWS and Azure offer equally competitive computing power, but there’s a thin line of difference when it comes to the computing resources offered by each.

AWS comes with Elastic Compute instances (EC2) that offer scalable computing on-demand and customization for several options. This allows you to choose the memory capacity, power, as well as the number of Virtual Machines (VMs).

In addition, Amazon Web Services offers EC2-related services such as EC2 container, Autoscaling, AWS lambda, and Elastic Beanstalk app deployment.

Azure, on the other hand, focuses on VM where users have to choose Virtual Hard Disks (VHDs) for their virtual machine. You can specify the memory size and cores of your VHD or choose a pre-configured one from Microsoft.

3. Security

Data security is one of the major concerns for businesses moving to the cloud. The two public cloud providers have tried to outsmart each other by offering sole-proprietary security solutions. This is based on role-based access control (RBAC), which manages how users have access to particular resources within the cloud.

Azure uses Active Directory version of RBAC whose capabilities exceed those of AWS’ RBAC – the Identity and Access Management (IAM). In fact, AWS directs its users on its own platform to use Azure’s Active Directory.

However, this is not to mean that AWS doesn’t offer premium security solutions as Azure. Its sophisticated security services such as DDoS protection and Guard security also compete closely with Active Directory features.

Besides, the security of your data in the cloud is more dependant on your staff than the tools used. So, if your business is endowed with a knowledgeable IT team, they’ll be able to successfully secure your data whether on Azure or AWS.

4. Database

AWS and Azure both offer mature database services with relational database and NoSQL offerings.

Amazon’s relational database service, RDS comes with more control and options to the user than Azure’s equivalent, the SQL database. However, SQL servers are easier to learn and use than AWS’s RDS, thanks to its deep history in working with businesses.

The battle further continues as Amazon’s RDS is compatible with popular database engines such as MYSQL, Amazon Aurora, MariaDB, and Ms. SQL, while Azure supports MS SQL servers only.

Comparing their NoSQL services, Amazon offers Amazon DynamoDB which can be used with its RDS to allow an even stronger cloud environment for large data volume. Azure’s NoSQL, Azure DocumentDB, can be integrated with Big Data through Azure HDInsight in addition to its relational database.

5. Networking

In terms of networking capabilities, Azure and AWS allow connectivity to your on-set premise system. What’s even better is that they offer automatic load balancing of the servers.

With Amazon, users can create isolated networks within the cloud using Virtual Private Cloud offered by AWS. The users can further create subnets, route tables, network gateways, and private IP address ranges. Azure also allows you to do the same with its Virtual Network (VNET).

Both providers also allow you to extend your on-premises data center into the cloud and provide a firewall option as well.

6. Pricing

There’s no clear cut line on which cloud service provider offers the most affordable rates. This due to the fact that computing power units vary between AWS and Azure.

Rather than charging on a monthly basis, both providers exploit the more modern means of paying – Pay As You Go (PAYG). Microsoft’s Azure charges based on minute-by-minute usage while AWS charges by the second, which is an improvement from their hourly charges.

Nevertheless, you can use the AWS calculator and the Azure calculator to help you estimate the costs depending on your cloud computing needs. There are also free trials with limited usage for new users.

7. Hybrid Cloud Capabilities

Azure has for long supported hybrid cloud services such as Hybrid SQL Server, Azure Stack, and Azure StorSimple.

AWS is still developing its hybrid capabilities especially after recently launching the Snowball Edge. This 100 TB hard drive will allow users to move workloads between the company’s cloud and the client’s data centers.

Image credit to: https://www.boxuk.com/

AWS vs. Azure: Which One Is Perfect For Your Business?

With this AWS vs. Azure comparison, you can now make a more informed decision for your business.

It’s important to note that the ideal cloud provider will depend on the needs of your business rather than the provider. You can even use both providers for different parts of your operational needs to enjoy the best of both worlds!

If you’re still at the crossroads on which cloud provider to use, we can help! Check out the blog for more info on both services.

Read our blog

ANNOUNCEMENT: new pricing and the end of free tier

Today we are announcing a new, updated pricing model and the end of free tier for Dashbird.

4 Tips for AWS Lambda Performance Optimization

In this article, we’re covering 4 tips for AWS Lambda optimization for production. Covering error handling, memory provisioning, monitoring, performance, and more.

AWS Lambda Free Tier: Where Are The Limits?

In this article we’ll go through the ins and outs of AWS Lambda pricing model, how it works, what additional charges you might be looking at and what’s in the fine print.

Made by developers for developers

Dashbird was born out of our own need for an enhanced serverless debugging and monitoring tool, and we take pride in being developers.

What our customers say

Dashbird gives us a simple and easy to use tool to have peace of mind and know that all of our Serverless functions are running correctly. We are instantly aware now if there’s a problem. We love the fact that we have enough information in the Slack notification itself to take appropriate action immediately and know exactly where the issue occurred.

Thanks to Dashbird the time to discover the occurrence of an issue reduced from 2-4 hours to a matter of seconds or minutes. It also means that hundreds of dollars are saved every month.

Great onboarding: it takes just a couple of minutes to connect an AWS account to an organization in Dashbird. The UI is clean and gives a good overview of what is happening with the Lambdas and API Gateways in the account.

I mean, it is just extremely time-saving. It’s so efficient! I don’t think it’s an exaggeration or dramatic to say that Dashbird has been a lifesaver for us.

Dashbird provides an easier interface to monitor and debug problems with our Lambdas. Relevant logs are simple to find and view. Dashbird’s support has been good, and they take product suggestions with grace.

Great UI. Easy to navigate through CloudWatch logs. Simple setup.

Dashbird helped us refine the size of our Lambdas, resulting in significantly reduced costs. We have Dashbird alert us in seconds via email when any of our functions behaves abnormally. Their app immediately makes the cause and severity of errors obvious.