CLOUD WAR – AWS VS. GCP
For most companies, choosing both a primary and secondary cloud service is now an important strategy. Recent research shows that approximately 90% of enterprises and non-profit organizations are using two or more cloud services accounts. This is a big change from what was happening only a few years ago when certain companies were still hesitant to trust their business data in any cloud application.
Usually, when we talk of cloud computing providers we are referring to the three giants in the industry: Google Cloud Platform(GCP) , Microsoft Azure, and Amazon Web Services (AWS). But in this article, we are going to compare just the two, AWS vs GCP.
There are certainly some advantages and disadvantages to both providers. In this article, we will compare these two global cloud storage and computing services, to help you choose the one that suits your company as the most cost and feature-efficient one available.
1. HOW TO GET STARTED
To use an Amazon Web Service, customers need to sign up for an AWS account. After they have finished, they can launch any service under their account within Amazon’s stated limits, and these services are billed to their particular account. If required, users can create billing accounts and then create sub-accounts that roll up to them. In this way, organizations can follow a standard organizational billing structure.
Likewise, Google Cloud Platform requires customers to set up a Google account to use its services. However, GCP categorizes service usage by plan rather than by account. In this model, customers can create several separate projects under the same account. In an organizational situation, this model can be beneficial, allowing customers to create project spaces for separate divisions within a company. This model can also be valuable for testing purposes.
2. COMPUTING
For computing, Amazon Web Services’ key offering is its EC2 instances, which can be tailored with a large number of choices. It also provides related services such as the EC2 Container Service, Elastic Beanstalk for app deployment, ECS for Kubernetes (EKS), and AWS Lambda and Autoscaling.
Meanwhile, Google Controls’ scalable compute engine delivers VMs in Google’s data centers. They are quick to boot, come with obstinate disk storage, promise reliable performance, and are highly customizable depending on the needs of the customer.
3. STORAGE
AWS and GCP both provide various kinds of Storage for user needs like Cold Storage for storing data that is not often used.
Below table provides a comparison of the storage offerings by AWS and GCP.
| Services | Amazon Web Services | Google Cloud Platform |
| Object Storage | Amazon Simple Storage Service | Google Cloud Storage |
| Block Storage | Amazon Elastic Block Store | Google Compute Engine Persistent Disks |
| Cold Storage | Amazon Glacier | Google Cloud Storage Nearline |
| File Storage | Amazon Elastic File System | ZFS/Avere |
4. CUSTOMERS
A prominent user base may not be the main reason for selecting your cloud provider, but it can help more vigilant organizations understand how the public cloud is helping others in their sector.
This is a strong point of AWS. It has progressively taken on large customer deals. For example, although the US Central Intelligence Agency signed a contract with IBM, it awarded AWS a contract to construct its private cloud in a one-off deal in 2013, which was seen as a symbolic moment for potential buyers.
Whereas, Google has notched up some key wins in recent years. Especially, when the streaming hulk Spotify completed an all-in migration to GCP in the summer of 2018. UK bank HSBC also opted for Google Cloud for its analytics and machine learning capabilities. However, HSBC is taking a clear multi-cloud approach, associating with all two providers for different workloads.
5. PRICING
One area where there is not a significant difference between these two market leaders is in pricing.
Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud both follow a per-second pricing process.
6. RESOURCE MANAGEMENT INTERFACES
AWS and GCP each provide (CLI) a command-line interface for networking with the services and resources. AWS provides the Amazon CLI, whereas GCP provides the Cloud SDK. Each is a unified CLI and each is cross-platform, with binaries available for Linux, Windows, and macOS.
Whereas in GCP, you can use the Cloud SDK in your browser by using Google Cloud Shell. AWS and GCP also offer web-based consoles where it allows users to create and monitor their resources.
Before we dive into the pros and cons of Google Cloud vs AWS, let’s take a look at some of the latest cloud computing trends. The ninth annual Flexera 2020 State of the Cloud Report highlights that:-
- Enterprises are already using more than two public and two private clouds on average
- Many enterprises believe that COVID-19 will increase their cloud usage
- 87% are taking a hybrid approach, combining the use of both public and private clouds
- Google exhibited the most robust growth among the top five.
- 40% of enterprises spend $1.2 million or more annually on AWS.
AWS: PROS AND CONS
PROS: Amazon was the first to market in 2006 and didn’t have any serious competition for more than two years. This was its biggest strength. It endures this leadership by continuing to invest heavily in its data centers and solutions. This is why; AWS dominates the public cloud market. Also, AWS has been the world leader for nearly 13 years, or ever since it first launched its S3 (Simple Storage Service) in 2006.
The reason for its popularity is the massive scope of its global operations. It has a huge and growing collection of available services, as well as the most widespread network of worldwide data centers.
CONS: Cost and data are Amazon’s Achilles heels. While AWS frequently lowers its prices, it has dropped them more than 80 times in the last few years, which probably means they were too high to initiate with. Many enterprises find it tough to understand the company’s cost structure. They also have a hard time handling these costs effectively when running a high volume of workloads on the service.
However, these cons are overshadowed by Amazon’s strengths, because organizations continue to use AWS for a wide variety of workloads.
GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM: PROS AND CONS
PROS: Users rely heavily on Google Clouds’ engineering expertise. Google has a classic offering in application container placements since it developed the Kubernetes app management standard that both AWS and Azure now offer. GCP focuses on high-end computing offerings such as big data, analytics, and machine learning. It also offers substantial scale-out options and data load balancing; Google knows what fast data centers need and offer fast response times in all of its solutions.
CONS: Google has a third-place in market share (8 percent; AWS is at 33 percent), most likely because it doesn’t provide as many different services and features as AWS. It also doesn’t have as many global data centers as AWS, although it is quickly growing. Google’s overall enterprise exposure from a field sales and solutions viewpoint is behind its competitors.
However, Google is aggressively targeting these shortcomings.
RESULT
In very comprehensive terms, Amazon Web Services continue to lead the way in terms of offering the broadest range of functionality and maturity. It stays to be the clear market leader, but the gap is closing.
Its extensive list of tools and services, along with its enterprise-friendly structures make it a strong proposition for large organizations.
Then there is Google Cloud Platform, which could prove a new serious enterprise competitor under its new leadership. It was already making good development with certain customers, particularly with its Kubernetes and Artificial Intelligence (Tensorflow) & machine learning expertise; it has much more work to do to prove as a strong enterprise option.
Disclaimer : We Big Data Trunk are Google Cloud Platform partner, but we have tried to keep this article as neutral as possible and explain everything in layman’s terms.