Gartner's Magic Quadrant for IaaS maintains Amazon Web Service at the top of the Leaders quadrant. Do you agree?
Amazon shares the space only with Microsoft Azure cloud, which, though far below AWS, is now a Leader. What are your experiences with Amazon vs. Microsoft in IaaS? Pros and Cons?
Yes. AWS's innovation is matched only by its ability to deliver. You can look at AWS at a distance and the breadth of their offerings are hefty. Basics like load balancing that is really simple to implement or CDN for websites. I mean, you can dip into AWS and use a fraction or you can go big and virtualise your entire server room and end up using EC2, EBS, Route 53, Glacier, Lambda, Kinesis, WorkSpaces, Redshift...
Is anyone else even close? I don't think so. Azure, Rackspace, Google have their fanbases and they do a great job but I feel AWS has a handle on everything. Want to put SAP B1 with HANA on AWS? Sure thing. Do you want a small instance of WordPress for a charity blog? Again, okay. Sitecore? Again, there's AWS documentation on it, too.
For me, AWS is a clear winner and it's doing a service by other cloud providers along. Healthy competition is always a good thing.
I have been involved in cloud computing for many years. The question is specific to AWS and Microsoft Azure AND IaaS. Many people interpret IaaS as merely providing virtual machines but the reality of IaaS is much broader than that. Networking, Storage, Service Bus, CDN, etc are all included in category/service model of IaaS. That said, there is no simple comparison that is fair across all those technologies. Each vendor implements the same type of "features", albeit in different ways. Overall, AWS has become a mess from a UI perspective and Microsoft is moving quickly to provide a simplified UI and only time will tell if they are successful. The newest portal is somewhat complex, but the problem-set is huge because essentially one is implementing IT at a distance. One critical area that is the underpinning of all IaaS features is Storage. Nasuni measures the storage performance of cloud providers and their 2013 tests are very revealing. If the underlying storage environment is slow, everything else suffers and your costs are inflated because of slow or varied storage access. For more information on uncertainty in cloud computing, see www.cloudcomputeinfo.com/2011/10/30/uncertaintyprincipleof-clou/
Oracle Web Administrator at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Consultant
Top 20
Jun 16, 2014
Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Windows Azure and Google are the major cloud hosting and storage service providers. Athough Amazon is at the top of the list and is the oldest in the cloud market, Rackspace, Microsoft and Google are giving tough competition to each other and to Amazon also for alluring IT customers. This article gives a brief history of these cloud hosting service providers and compares the cloud services provided by them.
Global IT Infrastructure Manager at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Vendor
Jul 13, 2017
Azure is so good than AWS or Google, however, have some unmatched points between these players. When we talk about IaaS the first player must bet AWS due to high availability and scalability. I know! Azure worked hard and now is very similar to AWS, but the cloud companies head have memories and it should be changed and will take awhile. In another hand when we think in PaaS or SaaS, Azure wins, but be careful..the same actions to switch the game that Azure is doing for IaaS, AWS and Google are doing for PaaS and SaaS.
Director of Operations at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Real User
May 21, 2016
If you are a Microsoft developer house Azure is the place to go. Do not use the IaaS but refractor and go directly to PaaS and SaaS. Amazingly powerful, easy to use and fits right into the Developer stack your developer's are used to. I will take Azure over AWS any day.
If you are a not a Microsoft developer stack AWS makes a lot of sense. AWS is too based on IaaS versus PaaS/SaaS but are starting to catch-up. Obviously miles ahead of Azure in adoption and there are more engineers that are familiar with AWS than Azure.
Sr. Solution Architect or Program Manager at a financial services firm
Vendor
Top 20
Nov 13, 2015
Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Windows Azure, Salesforce, Google are market leaders in the Cloud Computing Space. You can expect IBM to provide competition with IBM Bluemix as well as IBM Mainframes which already is a private cloud
Oracle Web Administrator at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Consultant
Top 20
Jun 18, 2014
The general review around AWS has not changed much. Such has been the widespread difference between AWS and it's most nearest competitor, there has always been a yawning gap between them.
Given Microsoft's entry into the leader's bracket this year is not something that would excite the cloud users immediately. It at the most makes great opportunity for Microsoft only shops to look forward to or brighten things up a bit. Agreed, that Microsoft's portfolio around tools which extends beyond IaaS are good and rich, but it still needs lot of catching up with AWS. A sad and unfortunate part of this is primarily due to the "still in preview" or "coming soon" offerings / features which would not see an impending rush by the enterprises to adopt or buy the Microsoft cloud story. It would be interesting though to observe closely what Microsoft plans to deliver this fall or early next year with a cloud focused "brain" at their helm, may help to move things a bit fast.
Senior Architect at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Consultant
Jun 18, 2014
If we mark closely the Gartner MQ over the last few years, you will notice that one consistent name in the leader's bracket has been AWS. Even with all the pitfalls around their cloud outages few quarters back, the general review around AWS has not changed much. Such has been the widespread difference between AWS and it's most nearest competitor, there has always been a yawning gap between them.
Given Microsoft's entry into the leader's bracket this year is not something that would excite the cloud users immediately. It at the most makes great opportunity for Microsoft only shops to look forward to or brighten things up a bit. Agreed, that Microsoft's portfolio around tools which extends beyond IaaS are good and rich, but it still needs lot of catching up with AWS. A sad and unfortunate part of this is primarily due to the "still in preview" or "coming soon" offerings / features which would not see an impending rush by the enterprises to adopt or buy the Microsoft cloud story. It would be interesting though to observe closely what Microsoft plans to deliver this fall or early next year with a cloud focused "brain" at their helm, may help to move things a bit fast.
So summarizing, deserving to be in the leaders quadrant, "yes" and a "no" and mind you it's not about the ease of portals that we are talking about, AWS with its clutter of functionality, features and new services, is and always been very confusing at times but from a true cloud services delivery / player point of view, it would still rule the roost till IBM-Softlayer or GCE matures, maybe.....Thanks, Abhijit
Architect at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
Vendor
Jun 17, 2014
Generally speaking, I agree AWS is the leader in IaaS. It provides the most
complete offerings in the market, with new services to be released in a
fast pace.
Off top of my head, followings are quick comparison between AWS and Azure
based on hands-on experiences:
1. VM provisioning speed: AWS outperforms Azure in Linux VMs, roughly
equal in Windows VMs.
2. VM image & deployment security: In the past, the security settings of
default selected/suggested Linux VMs make more sense in AWS. In addition,
AWS IAM also mitigates key/credential deployment issues of your solution.
3. Storage security/encryption: AWS provides more options in this regard.
4.Some network protocols are not supported in Azure, say ICMP.
5. AWS ELB needs warm-up time to ramp up, but it allows SSL offload. Azure
NLB seems no warm-up time, but no way to offload SSL (MSFT claimed that do
it in VM by yourself is more secure).
6. Get the impression that Azure outperforms AWS in terms of internal
network bandwidth/throughput.
BTW, Google claims its GCE VM provisioning is super fast, but I haven't seen this hands-on.
I have no experience with Azure, but they are doing well obviously with Windows based hosting. No one beats AWS for IaaS. Their density is unmatched in the industry. I would say that for pure MS based solutions, Azure might be a better solution, but AWS density will be hard to beat, and therefore might cost less.
I agree. Amazon has been for a long time the best option for IAAS. But Microsoft is getting closer.
Amazon was the first to provide services and Operating systems that anyone else have, but the products and services for other cloud providers (including Microsoft) have get enriched thru time and the differences between both providers (AWS and MS) right now are very small. Even in prices both companies have been reducing costs of their products offering pretty much the same.
I have come very familiar with the Microsoft azure portal and I think it is easier to work with it than amazons portal. Sizes of VM are pretty much the same, but amazon still has some more powerful and faster VM that the ones that Microsoft offer.
Each of them (AWS and MS) offer free Vms (small but effective to try out), so it depends more on in which platform you feel more comfortable to work (portal, administration tools, etc)
Billing details are specific on both providers so you have the detail of what you been charged for.
AWS has been leader for a lot of time, but I think that MS is coming very close. I still work with both platforms but in this year we have created more Azure VM than AWS VM, the reason I still believe is simplicity.
Hope this helps!
Best Regards
Microsoft Azure and Amazon AWS are leading competitors in the cloud computing platform space. AWS seems to have the upper hand due to its vast array of features, robust global presence, and strong market share.Features: Azure offers seamless integration with Microsoft products, unlimited compatibility with programming languages, and a worldwide data center network for reliability and speed. AWS provides a comprehensive cloud platform, with advanced computer services, diverse operating systems...
Yes. AWS's innovation is matched only by its ability to deliver. You can look at AWS at a distance and the breadth of their offerings are hefty. Basics like load balancing that is really simple to implement or CDN for websites. I mean, you can dip into AWS and use a fraction or you can go big and virtualise your entire server room and end up using EC2, EBS, Route 53, Glacier, Lambda, Kinesis, WorkSpaces, Redshift...
Is anyone else even close? I don't think so. Azure, Rackspace, Google have their fanbases and they do a great job but I feel AWS has a handle on everything. Want to put SAP B1 with HANA on AWS? Sure thing. Do you want a small instance of WordPress for a charity blog? Again, okay. Sitecore? Again, there's AWS documentation on it, too.
For me, AWS is a clear winner and it's doing a service by other cloud providers along. Healthy competition is always a good thing.
I have been involved in cloud computing for many years. The question is specific to AWS and Microsoft Azure AND IaaS. Many people interpret IaaS as merely providing virtual machines but the reality of IaaS is much broader than that. Networking, Storage, Service Bus, CDN, etc are all included in category/service model of IaaS. That said, there is no simple comparison that is fair across all those technologies. Each vendor implements the same type of "features", albeit in different ways. Overall, AWS has become a mess from a UI perspective and Microsoft is moving quickly to provide a simplified UI and only time will tell if they are successful. The newest portal is somewhat complex, but the problem-set is huge because essentially one is implementing IT at a distance. One critical area that is the underpinning of all IaaS features is Storage. Nasuni measures the storage performance of cloud providers and their 2013 tests are very revealing. If the underlying storage environment is slow, everything else suffers and your costs are inflated because of slow or varied storage access. For more information on uncertainty in cloud computing, see www.cloudcomputeinfo.com/2011/10/30/uncertaintyprincipleof-clou/
Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Windows Azure and Google are the major cloud hosting and storage service providers. Athough Amazon is at the top of the list and is the oldest in the cloud market, Rackspace, Microsoft and Google are giving tough competition to each other and to Amazon also for alluring IT customers. This article gives a brief history of these cloud hosting service providers and compares the cloud services provided by them.
Azure is so good than AWS or Google, however, have some unmatched points between these players. When we talk about IaaS the first player must bet AWS due to high availability and scalability. I know! Azure worked hard and now is very similar to AWS, but the cloud companies head have memories and it should be changed and will take awhile. In another hand when we think in PaaS or SaaS, Azure wins, but be careful..the same actions to switch the game that Azure is doing for IaaS, AWS and Google are doing for PaaS and SaaS.
If you are a Microsoft developer house Azure is the place to go. Do not use the IaaS but refractor and go directly to PaaS and SaaS. Amazingly powerful, easy to use and fits right into the Developer stack your developer's are used to. I will take Azure over AWS any day.
If you are a not a Microsoft developer stack AWS makes a lot of sense. AWS is too based on IaaS versus PaaS/SaaS but are starting to catch-up. Obviously miles ahead of Azure in adoption and there are more engineers that are familiar with AWS than Azure.
Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Windows Azure, Salesforce, Google are market leaders in the Cloud Computing Space. You can expect IBM to provide competition with IBM Bluemix as well as IBM Mainframes which already is a private cloud
The general review around AWS has not changed much. Such has been the widespread difference between AWS and it's most nearest competitor, there has always been a yawning gap between them.
Given Microsoft's entry into the leader's bracket this year is not something that would excite the cloud users immediately. It at the most makes great opportunity for Microsoft only shops to look forward to or brighten things up a bit. Agreed, that Microsoft's portfolio around tools which extends beyond IaaS are good and rich, but it still needs lot of catching up with AWS. A sad and unfortunate part of this is primarily due to the "still in preview" or "coming soon" offerings / features which would not see an impending rush by the enterprises to adopt or buy the Microsoft cloud story. It would be interesting though to observe closely what Microsoft plans to deliver this fall or early next year with a cloud focused "brain" at their helm, may help to move things a bit fast.
If we mark closely the Gartner MQ over the last few years, you will notice that one consistent name in the leader's bracket has been AWS. Even with all the pitfalls around their cloud outages few quarters back, the general review around AWS has not changed much. Such has been the widespread difference between AWS and it's most nearest competitor, there has always been a yawning gap between them.
Given Microsoft's entry into the leader's bracket this year is not something that would excite the cloud users immediately. It at the most makes great opportunity for Microsoft only shops to look forward to or brighten things up a bit. Agreed, that Microsoft's portfolio around tools which extends beyond IaaS are good and rich, but it still needs lot of catching up with AWS. A sad and unfortunate part of this is primarily due to the "still in preview" or "coming soon" offerings / features which would not see an impending rush by the enterprises to adopt or buy the Microsoft cloud story. It would be interesting though to observe closely what Microsoft plans to deliver this fall or early next year with a cloud focused "brain" at their helm, may help to move things a bit fast.
So summarizing, deserving to be in the leaders quadrant, "yes" and a "no" and mind you it's not about the ease of portals that we are talking about, AWS with its clutter of functionality, features and new services, is and always been very confusing at times but from a true cloud services delivery / player point of view, it would still rule the roost till IBM-Softlayer or GCE matures, maybe.....Thanks, Abhijit
Generally speaking, I agree AWS is the leader in IaaS. It provides the most
complete offerings in the market, with new services to be released in a
fast pace.
Off top of my head, followings are quick comparison between AWS and Azure
based on hands-on experiences:
1. VM provisioning speed: AWS outperforms Azure in Linux VMs, roughly
equal in Windows VMs.
2. VM image & deployment security: In the past, the security settings of
default selected/suggested Linux VMs make more sense in AWS. In addition,
AWS IAM also mitigates key/credential deployment issues of your solution.
3. Storage security/encryption: AWS provides more options in this regard.
4.Some network protocols are not supported in Azure, say ICMP.
5. AWS ELB needs warm-up time to ramp up, but it allows SSL offload. Azure
NLB seems no warm-up time, but no way to offload SSL (MSFT claimed that do
it in VM by yourself is more secure).
6. Get the impression that Azure outperforms AWS in terms of internal
network bandwidth/throughput.
BTW, Google claims its GCE VM provisioning is super fast, but I haven't seen this hands-on.
Thanks,
Winston
I have no experience with Azure, but they are doing well obviously with Windows based hosting. No one beats AWS for IaaS. Their density is unmatched in the industry. I would say that for pure MS based solutions, Azure might be a better solution, but AWS density will be hard to beat, and therefore might cost less.
I agree. Amazon has been for a long time the best option for IAAS. But Microsoft is getting closer.
Amazon was the first to provide services and Operating systems that anyone else have, but the products and services for other cloud providers (including Microsoft) have get enriched thru time and the differences between both providers (AWS and MS) right now are very small. Even in prices both companies have been reducing costs of their products offering pretty much the same.
I have come very familiar with the Microsoft azure portal and I think it is easier to work with it than amazons portal. Sizes of VM are pretty much the same, but amazon still has some more powerful and faster VM that the ones that Microsoft offer.
Each of them (AWS and MS) offer free Vms (small but effective to try out), so it depends more on in which platform you feel more comfortable to work (portal, administration tools, etc)
Billing details are specific on both providers so you have the detail of what you been charged for.
AWS has been leader for a lot of time, but I think that MS is coming very close. I still work with both platforms but in this year we have created more Azure VM than AWS VM, the reason I still believe is simplicity.
Hope this helps!
Best Regards