Amazon AWS vs Microsoft Azure vs Red Hat OpenShift comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is an adopted cloud platform that offers more than 200 fully featured services from data centers located across the globe. This is a scalable, low-cost infrastructure platform in the cloud that is utilized by thousands of businesses of different sizes around the world. The product offers a wide variety of solutions for its customers, which allows them to launch applications regardless of their industry.

The most common use cases for AWS are:

• Application hosting: Clients can take advantage of on-demand infrastructure to power their applications. The product supports multiple types of apps, varying from hosted internal applications to software as a service (SaaS) offerings.
  
  
• Websites: With AWS, clients can satisfy their web hosting needs through a scalable platform for their websites.
  
  
• Backup and storage: AWS offers reliable data storage services, which allow clients to store their data and build dependable backups for all of their valuable information.
  
  
• Enterprise IT: The product allows companies to host internal- or external-facing IT applications in a highly secure environment.
  
  
• Content delivery: Users who want to distribute content to end users worldwide can do so quickly and easily through the high data transfer speeds of this solution.
  
  
• Databases: AWS offers a variety of database solutions, which include hosted enterprise database software as well as non-relational database solutions.

Amazon AWS supports a global cloud infrastructure with AWS Region and Availability Zone models, which contribute to the high availability of enterprise applications running on the solution. Amazon AWS has an extensive array of products that serve different purposes, including:

• Analytics
• Application integration
• Blockchain
• Business applications
• Cloud financial management
• Compute
• Contact center
• Containers
• Database
• Developer tools
• End-user computing
• Front-end web and mobile
• Games
• Internet of Things (IoT)
• Machine learning
• Management and governance
• Quantum technologies
• Robotics
• Satellite
• Security, identity and compliance, and others

The products and services that Amazon AWS delivers to these sectors provide a large computing capacity which is quicker and cheaper compared to building a physical server farm. Among the most popular services are Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, also known as "EC2," and Amazon Simple Storage Service, also known as "S3."

Amazon AWS Features

The wide array of products that Amazon AWS offers consist of different functions that utilize cloud computing across different sectors. The features of this solution can be categorized in the following ways:

• Data and relationship management: With Amazon AWS, companies can manage multiple hierarchies of directory data, they can define attributes for objects and relationships, set custom inheritance rules for directories, and create multiple schemas.
  
  
• Schema management: This group of features allows users to extend their directory schema according to their needs. They can extend it through multiple applications that share a single directory while avoiding duplication of data.
  
  
• Fully managed infrastructure: This feature decreases time and costs for administrative tasks for companies regarding scaling infrastructure and managing servers.
  
  
• Searching feature: The Cloud Directory feature of AWS offers built-in search capabilities which can cover sets of highly connected data and eliminate the need of creating nested queries.
  
  
• Built-in data encryption: Users can benefit from high levels of protection of their data with AWS's products. The data in the cloud is automatically encrypted at rest and in transit through 256-bit encryption keys, managed by AWS Key Management Service (KMS).
  
  
• Object policies: This feature allows Amazon AWS users to organize objects in different hierarchies by providing a framework for applications to evaluate policy assignments.

Amazon AWS Benefits

This product delivers various benefits across all industries that utilize its services. The greatest advantages of using Amazon AWS include:

• High product functionality is supported by machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), IoT, data lakes, and analytics.
  
  
• The solution has a high level of security, which is backed by a deep set ofmore than 100 cloud security tools.
  
  
• Amazon AWS has an easy-to-use interface that makes it possible for clients to host applications.
  
  
• The product is very flexible in terms of which operating system, programming language, web app platform, and database clients can use.
  
  
• AWS is a scalable and highly secure global computing infrastructure, supported by the reliability of Amazon.com.
  
  
• Clients can utilize the Auto Scaling and Elastic Load Balancing tools to personally scale up or down applications, depending on their demand.
  
  
• Users can choose from an array of payment options, including paying for only the services they need, as well as a free trial to select the ones most useful for them.

Reviews from Real Users

Greg G., a chief executive officer at a tech services company, ranks Amazon AWS highly, as he states that the solution is flexible, scales well, and offers good stability.

A technology manager technology at a computer software company values Amazon AWS because it is extremely cost-efficient, easy to upgrade and expand storage with greatly improved interfaces.

Windows Azure is Microsoft's cloud platform, where developers can create, deploy, and maintain their apps. This cloud application platform allows developers to concentrate on the actual applications, while it takes care of all the elements behind the apps.

Windows Azure works across multiple frameworks and languages. It is fully scalable, localized in that it is hosted globally in many datacenters, and has widespread capabilities with elements of application development, deployment, and management.

Azure is comprised of several different service modules, including Infrastructure; Web; Mobile; Dev & Test; Big Data; Media;Storage, Backup & Recovery; and Identity & Access Management.

Microsoft Azure works as a:

1. Platform as a service (PaaS)

2. Software as a service (SaaS)

3. Infrastructure as a service (IaaS)

Microsoft Azure is available:

• On-premises

• Hybrid

• Multi-cloud

• At the edge

Compared to its competitors, Microsoft Azure:

• Has more affordable features

• Has easier migration for organizations already using other Microsoft tools

• Has several educational resources available

• Provides robust support

• Is ideal for small and large businesses

Microsoft Azure Features:

• Scalability

• Stability

• Flexibility

• Azure Site Recovery

• Active Directory

• Monitoring features

• Cloud-based

• Automated tasks

• Change capability cadence

• Showback capabilities

• Information protection

• Azure Data Lake

• Excellent portal

• Intuitive user interface

• Remote desktop

• Fast provisioning

• Data security

• Data resiliency

• Speed of service

• Integrated delivery pipeline

• Disaster recovery

• Robust templates

• Flexible coding languages

• Virtual systems testing

Benefits of Microsoft Azure:

• Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): Because Microsoft Azure is an IaaS, organizations can deploy as well as manage applications easily and quickly. Azure also provides you with the ability to customize the cloud software to meet your specific business needs.

• Seamless integration: Microsoft Azure is built to seamlessly integrate with existing IT departments via hybrid databases, secure private connections, and storage solutions.

• Cost-effective: Because Azure can harmoniously exist in your business environment with your data center, it is a very cost-effective solution.

• Analytics support: Azure is designed with built-in support that is used to analyze data and provide key insights. Azure offers Cortana Analytics, Stream Analytics, Machine Learning, and SQL services.

• Unique storage system: Compared to other cloud services, Microsoft Azure has more data centers and delivery points, which helps create an optimal user experience and also helps deliver content faster. In addition, Microsoft Azure makes it possible for organizations to exchange content across several virtual machines.

• Enhanced flexibility: Azure provides extreme flexibility by allowing you to choose any level of functionality you require. It also supports many of the same technologies IT teams and developers usually depend on, making it easier for them to manage.

• Easy implementation: Microsoft Azure is easy and quick to deploy. If necessary, you can change web apps to Azure with almost zero downtime.

Reviews from Real Users:

"It is a flexible solution that is straightforward to use," says the principal consultant at a computer software company.

OmarJ., future datacenter consultant: Microsoft Azure Cloud at a tech company, adds that "The user interface is very nice and makes everything easy to use."

“You can build an environment in minutes. It's very good in terms of being an infrastructure as a service, and I found that really fascinating,” says an information technology consultant at a computer software company.

"I think Azure's level of automation to achieve efficiency or agility is valuable. I also like the change capability cadence, the showback capabilities, and understanding what our costs are," says an enterprise architect at an energy/utilities company.

Marco C., Ing. at Wolters Kluwer, says "The valuable features of Microsoft Azure are that it is cloud-based and has good storage. The storage is completely managed by Azure. We do not need to do any patching of security because it is handled by Azure which is a benefit. The solution is fully compatible with the Microsoft technology stack and is very scalable."

"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Azure is it has everything together in one place. It is one large tool with lots of small tools that are updated often," says the owner of a media company.

OpenShift is Red Hat's Kubernetes platform that provides a cloud environment for development, hosting, and scaling applications. The solution enables a cloud-like experience regardless of the location where it has been deployed, including in the cloud, on premises, or at the edge. It allows developers to select where to build, deploy, and run applications through a consistent experience, supported by full-stack automated operations, and self-service provisioning.

OpenShift employs an open hybrid cloud strategy which is built on the foundation of technologies including Linux, containers, and automation. This approach provides clients with a flexible selection of where to run their applications. Applications can be built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and are automatically compatible with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform. OpenShift enables automation inside and outside clients' Kubernetes clusters.

The solution works with traditional, modernized, and cloud-native applications. It supports a wide variety of workloads, including Java, artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML), and databases. Due to the vast ecosystem of technology partners that OpenShift supports, clients can benefit from automated deployment and life-cycle management. This product improves the security of the full application life cycle by decreasing operational risk. This is achieved by shifting security left and automating development, security, and operations (DevSecOps).

OpenShift Features

OpenShift facilitates clients’ application-running processes through various features. Some of the product’s features include:

• Backup and recovery: This feature ensures logical and physical protection through containers, Kubernetes, and serverless present opportunities. It is used to meet recovery point objectives (RPO) and recovery time objectives (RTO).
  
  
• CI/CD pipelines: This feature of OpenShift automates the continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines, accelerating the time for application development.
  
  
• GitOps: The GitOps feature increases security and reliability for applications through tools like Git repositories, Kubernetes, and CI/CD. The product includes this feature to allow developers more freedom in app development through tracing and accounting for the application life cycle in the Git repository.
  
  
• Helm: Helm is a package and installs manager that simplifies the deployment of containerized apps. It is included in the features of OpenShift to assist users with interoperability and support cloud-native applications from independent software vendors (ISVs).
  
  
• Sandboxed containers: OpenShift offers sandboxed containers based on Kata Containers to provide an additional layer of isolation for applications while meeting high-security requirements.
  
  
• Windows containers: The product offers this feature to facilitate users when running their Windows applications by providing them a scheduled, orchestrated, and managed environment.
  
  
• Security: OpenShift offers various operations through which clients can ensure the safety of their data and applications. They include container host and platform multitenancy, security and trusted content sources, security of the container registry, the build pipeline, and data, managing security container deployments, and more.
  
  
• Service Mesh: This feature provides a uniform way for clients to connect, manage, and observe microservices-based applications. It also provides detailed behavioral insight.
  
  
• Operators: This feature automates the development, configuration, and management of Kubernetes-native applications.
  
  
• Virtualization: OpenShift allows users to run and manage virtual machine (VM) and container workloads side by side.

OpenShift Benefits

OpenShift provides the companies and users utilizing it with various benefits. These benefits include the following:

• OpenShift provides scalability for applications, allowing them to run across hundreds of nodes in seconds.
  
  
• The product offers flexibility by simplifying the deployment and management of hybrid infrastructure and providing self-managed or fully-managed service.
  
  
• OpenShift incorporates open-source technologies alongside its native components and features.
  
  
• The product enhances the developer experience by offering a variety of tools, multi language support, and integrated development environment (IDE) integrations.
  
  
• The solution supports automated installation and over-the-air platform upgrades in the cloud with Amazon AWS, Google Cloud Platform, IBM Cloud, and Microsoft Azure, as well as various on-premise platforms.
  
  
• OpenShift includes streamlined and automated container and app builds, as well as health management and scaling.
  
  
• The solution enhances the support of smaller-footprint topologies in edge scenarios.
  
  
• OpenShift provides easy multiple cluster management through Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes.
  
  
• The product has enhanced security capabilities that include access controls, an enterprise registry with a built-in scanner, and networking.
  
  
• The solution supports a wide spectrum of enterprise storage solutions for running stateful as well as stateless apps.

Reviews from Real Users

An executive head of department - M-PESA Tech at a comms service provider gives OpenShift a high rating because its automation can go a long way in reducing time to market and the time required to fix issues that arise from deployment.

Vikram C., head of infrastructure & cloud ops at a comms service provider, rates highly three qualities of OpenShift, summarizing them to mature, seamless integration, and easy setup.