Storage and Services of AWS Vs Azure
AWS and Azure Cloud Comparison
AWS and Microsoft Azure are the two giants of the Cloud industry. AWS is one of the most commonly used and undisputed market leaders of Cloud computing platforms across the world. Prestigious organizations like Pinterest, Netflix, Adobe, Airbnb, Spotify, and HTC have shown their trust in AWS for their proper functioning. It dominates the Cloud computing domain with 40% of the entire market share. It provides a wide spectrum of services across a variety of domains like compute, network, storage, migration, etc.
Azure is the second most favored Cloud computing platform which was launched way after AWS but has surprisingly acquired a significant share of the market. It is entrusted by more than 80% of the Fortune 500 companies for their cloud computing needs. It provides its services to more regions than any other cloud service provider in the world. It provides more than 100 services spanning across a variety of domains.
We will discuss Azure vs. AWS key differences of Storage and Service domains.
AWS and Azure Storage
Discovering an approach to store, distribute and manage your entire data can be a bit of a challenge. Running applications, delivering content to users, hosting high traffic websites, or backing up documents, databases and emails will always demand a lot of storage and the need for higher storage space keeps rising exponentially.
It is very expensive and time-consuming to build and maintain your own storage repository. You first need to buy racks and racks of dedicated hardware and software, then you need to hire a staff to get it all up and running. You’ll also have to set up complex processes to ensure that your storage is performing well and backed up in case of a failure. But if you wish to add more capacity, it will cost more money and time to deploy more servers, hard drives, and take backup machines. It is quite difficult to figure out how much capacity you need in the future. If you get it wrong, it means you either won’t have enough storage or you end up overspending and with excess capacity that sits idle. But there is a better way to address this problem. It is Cloud storage.
AWS storage service provides developers and IT teams with safe and secure object storage. It’s easy to use with a simple web service interface that can be used to store and retrieve any amount of data at any time or from anywhere on the web. You can choose the region where you want your data to be stored. You can store as much data as you want and access it when you need it. It also ensures that your valuable data is not lost so it creates multiple backups on numerous devices.
In Microsoft Azure, we use a storage account that is used for storage. Azure Storage or Storage Accounts is a service from Azure, which accommodates storage services for numerous use cases. Azure Storage is the Cloud storage solution for advanced applications that are dependent on durability, availability, and scalability to satisfy the demands of their clients.
AWS vs Azure on the basis of Block Storage
Elastic Block Store (EBS) is Amazon’s offering, and it comes in different varieties: Common magnetic, spinning-disk offerings such as Throughput Optimized or Cold HDD; Next-generation drives, as well as Provisioned IOPS SSD, are planned for latency-sensitive transactional workloads, according to Amazon. AWS offers a 99.95% availability Service-Level Agreement (SLA) in some settings for its block storage service.
Managed Disks, Azure’s block storage service, is available in two variations: regular and premium, with the latter relying on SSDs. Azure offers a 99.99% availability Service-Level Agreement (SLA) in some settings for its block storage service.
AWS vs Azure on the basis of Object Storage
Simple Storage Service is AWS’s main object storage network (S3). For cool storage, it has Standard-Infrequent Access, and for cold storage, it has Glacier. The maximum object size in AWS is 5TB. AWS boasts that items stored in its cloud are 99.999999999 percent durable. According to AWS, if you store 10,000 items in the cloud, one file would be lost on average every 10 million years. The argument is that these systems are designed to last a lifetime.
With Azure Hot and Cold Storage Blobs, consumers can only choose between hot and cool storage; archival data must be stored in cool storage. Azure has a 500TB capacity per account. Azure does not publish Service Level Agreements for longevity.
AWS vs Azure on the basis of File Storage
The use of a cloud-based file storage system is an evolving use case. This can be considered as a cloud-based variant of the classic Network File System (NFS) where users can install files on the system from any connected computer or virtual machine, then read and retrieve them.
The File Storage from AWS is called the Elastic File System and was released from beta in June 2016. Users may use AWS Direct Connect or a virtual private connection to install files from AWS Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) virtual machines within a virtual private cloud, or from on-premises services (VPC). It has no size cap and scales up automatically depending on demand, with a throughput of 50 megabits per second per terabyte of storage; customers can pay for up to 100 megabits per second throughput.
On the other hand, File Storage from Azure is called Azure File Storage, which is identical in nature but has a 5TB per file and 500TB per account limit and requires manual scaling. When reading data, it has a throughput of 60MBps.
AWS vs Azure on the basis of Shared File Services
Amazon Elastic File System (EFS) : Amazon EFS is a simple, serverless, set-and-forget elastic file system that allows you to transfer files without having to provision or manage storage. It works with both AWS Cloud providers and on-premises infrastructure, and it’s designed to scale up to petabytes on demand without affecting applications. With Amazon EFS you can choose to create file systems using Standard or One Zone storage classes.
Amazon FSX : Amazon FSx makes launching and running common file systems that are completely controlled by AWS, simple and affordable. You can take advantage of the rich feature sets and fast performance of commonly used open source and commercially licensed file systems with Amazon FSx, while avoiding time-consuming administrative tasks like hardware provisioning, software setup, patching, and backups. It offers cost-effective capacity with high reliability, and it integrates with a wide range of AWS services to allow faster innovation.
Azure Files : Azure Files are simple, secure, and serverless enterprise-grade cloud file shares. They’re cloud-based file shares that are completely managed and available using industry-standard SMB and NFS protocols. Cloud and on-premises deployments of Windows, Linux, and macOS can all install Azure file shares at the same time. Azure file shares can also be cached on Windows Servers using Azure File Sync for quick access to data close to where it’s needed.
AWS vs Azure Services Comparison
AWS and Azure, both the Clouds offer a huge spectrum of services. We have compared some major services of these platforms.
AWS vs Azure on the basis of Compute Services
Amazon EC2 : Amazon EC2 is a virtual server that supports both Linux and Windows Operating Systems. Its configurations are called instance types. It stores the AMI or operating system in a root volume. It uses Elastic Block Storage Volumes for persistent storage volumes for your data. You can encrypt EBS Volumes with AWS KMS. The security group enables you to create security rules to allow the traffic going to your instances. All EC2 instances are launched in an isolated network called VPC.
Azure VM : Azure VM is a Linux-based / Windows-based virtual server that you can provision. Its configurations are called VM series. It stores the VM images or operating system in an OS disk. It uses Azure Disk for persistent storage volumes for your data. You can encrypt OS and data disks with Azure SSE. NIC network security group enables you to create security rules to allow or deny the traffic going to your virtual machine. All virtual machines are launched in an isolated network called VNet.
AWS vs Azure on the basis of Database Services
Amazon RDS : Amazon RDS configures and scales a relational database in the Cloud. It uses various engines like Amazon Aurora, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Oracle, MariaDB, and Microsoft SQL Server. The serverless database is called Amazon Aurora Serverless. It has a Standard, Memory-Optimized, and Burstable Classes database performance. It eliminates a single point of failure with multi-AZ deployment. It has an automated backup retention period of up to 35 days.
Azure SQL : Azure SQL is a fully managed and intelligent relational database in the cloud. It uses Microsoft SQL Server as the database engine. The serverless database is called Azure SQL Database serverless. It has a General Purpose, Hyperscale, and Business Critical database performance. It eliminates a single point of failure with zone redundant configuration. It has an automated backup retention period of up to 35 days.
AWS vs Azure on the basis of Networking Services
Amazon VPC : Amazon VPC is a virtual network service in AWS where you can launch your resources. It has a default VPC in each region. AWS reserves 5 IP addresses within each subnet. These subnets are from /28 to /16 with Private, Public, and VPN-only types. You can secure your network using NACLs and Security Groups. A VPC peering enables communication between two VPCs.
Azure VNet : Azure VNet is an isolated network service in Azure to run your VMS and applications. It does not have a default VNet. Azure reserves 5 IP addresses within each subnet. These subnets are from /29 to /8 with Private, Public, and Gateway types. You can secure your network using NSGs and ASGs. A VNet peering enables the communication between Virtual Networks.
AWS vs Azure on the basis of Security and Identity Services
AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) : AWS IAM is used to create and manage users, groups, roles, and policies in your account. IAM groups allow you to organize a large number of IAM users. You can delegate administrator roles using identity-based policies. You can access resources only in the AWS console. You can monitor the status of your user accounts with a credential report. You can use IAM roles to grant users temporary permission. A collection of permissions written in JSON is called IAM policies. You can assign multiple permissions to an IAM user.
Azure AD and RBAC : Azure AD is used to create users and groups with Azure Active Directory. Azure AD allows you to assign a large number of users to groups. You can delegate administrator roles using Azure AD. It supports hybrid identity to access resources in the cloud or on-premises. You can monitor the security and usage patterns of your environment with Azure AD reports and monitoring. RBAC enables you to grant users certain roles to access specific resources. A collection of permissions written in JSON is called role definition in RBAC. You can assign multiple roles to a resource group with RBAC.
AWS and Azure with InfosecTrain
Both AWS and Azure have their own benefits and it’s hard to decide which one is better than the other. You need to choose the one that fulfills your requirements. AWS is a leading provider of Cloud services but Microsoft Azure is not far behind. Both AWS and Azure professionals are in high demand in the market to help businesses improve their performance. Take the first step towards being a qualified AWS and Azure Cloud Engineer with InfosecTrain. We are one of the most prestigious and well-known security and technology training and consulting organizations in the world. We have a wide spectrum of Cloud training that is led by highly experienced and trained instructors. The AWS and Azure training with InfosecTrain will help you develop a better understanding of the subject. It will indeed merit each penny and minute that you will invest.
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