Brief Comparison between Windows Azure and Amazon Web Service
Posted by Karthikeyan Anbarasan on February 6, 2012
Today I was discussing about my first Windows Azure project and came to know some interesting things and some comparison between the Windows Azure and Amazon Web Services. Each has its own advantages and disadvantage, to my followers who frequently ask me about what Azure is and when to use the Azure cloud this comparison chart will give some insight on the things to consider. Below Comparison chart will provide with easy comparison between the Windows Azure and Amazon EC2 Web Services cloud terminologies.
Microsoft Windows Azure |
Amazon Web Services |
|
| Free Trial | https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/pricing/free-trial/ | http://aws.amazon.com/free/ |
| Compute Instance | ExtraSmall, Small, Medium, Large, Extra Large | Micro, Small, Large, Extra Large |
| Compute VM | VM Role Instance | EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) Instance |
| Scaling | Auto Scaling Blocks | Auto Scaling |
| Identity Management | AppFabric ACS (Access Control System) | IAM |
| Messaging | Service Bus | SNS (Simple Notification Services) |
| Caching | AppFabric Cache | Elastic Cache |
| CND | Azure CDN | Cloud Front |
| Storage Blob | Azure Blob | S3 |
| Storage Tables | Azure Tables | Simple DB |
| Storage Drive | Azure Drives | EBS (Elastic Block Storage) |
| Database | SQL Azure | MySQL, Oracle |
| Queues | Azure Queues | SQS (Simple Queue Services) |
| Connect | Azure Connect | VPC (Virtual Private Cloud) |
| Load Balancing | Azure Load Balance | Elastic Load Balance |
| Traffic Manager | Azure Traffic Manager | NA |
| Monitoring Tools | AzureWatch(3rd Party) | CloudWatch |
This article is just a start on the comparison, we will see in depth on each of the topics on the go to get complete idea to proceed with the best options before start designing the cloud.
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Suman said
Actually, Amazon does have features for some of the things you have noted as missing:
- Identity Management: IAM
- Messaging: Simple Notification Service (SNS)
- Caching: ElasticCache
And I think you’re right about a Traffic Manager, though it wouldn’t be that hard to build one for AWS.
Karthikeyan Anbarasan said
Thanks Suman for pointing it. I have updated the article for the readers.
https://appharbor.com/ said
I’d love to see AppHarbor (https://appharbor.com/) included in the comparison, I think our platform has a leg up on both Azure and bare-bones AWS for most use cases. There’s more info here: https://appharbor.com/page/how-it-works
Jin said
Wha’s IAM on the Diagram? Plz let me know shortly.
Karthikeyan Anbarasan said
Jin,
IAM is the Identity and Access Management for the Amazon Web Services. Hope this is helpful. thanks