Today, many businesses are moving their entire on-premises infrastructures to the cloud. There are many providers offering cloud-based services, but two of the most well-known are AWS and Microsoft Azure. In this article, we examine the strategic benefits that each has to offer.
The Advantages of AWS
AWS is an acronym that stands for Amazon Web Services and compared to Azure, has been around much longer. This gives AWS a competitive advantage in terms of brand awareness. Here are some of the reasons to utilize AWS:
Since AWS has been around for so long, it has been able to offer its customers a complete set of services, encapsulating everything an organization would need from a cloud provider. But it stretches beyond that. This cloud juggernaut also offers a full set of documentation and videos that allows an organization to get up and running with a low learning curve. AWS also has a partner network that customers can take advantage of. This global community leverages programs, expertise, and resources to help build, market, and sell customer offerings.
Affordable pricing
When compared to some other Cloud providers, AWS is known to have more affordable pricing. For example, when you first open an account, all of the services are free to use for the first year. They also have tiered pricing, which simply means you can pick a server image that is free of charge to use.
Flexibility
Some businesses prefer to have multiple cloud providers. AWS is flexible enough that it can connect and become interoperable with other providers. For example, connections can be made between AWS and Azure if an organization desires a configuration of both.
Levels of security
Data Privacy is very much a hot-button topic these days and AWS has the tools that are necessary for a business to meet GDPR, CCPA, and HIPAA compliance, among others. But, it is important to keep in mind that although the tools are provided, it is up to the organization to make sure that all datasets are configured to their specific requirements.
International dominance
Since AWS has been around the longest, it has a global brand reputation. Therefore, it is easy to connect with customers who also have an AWS deployment and share data easily in a safe and secure manner.
Different storage options
AWS also offers various storage options for data backup depending upon the needs of the business. These include the following:
The Advantages of Azure
It's scalableWhen compared to AWS, Azure offers a higher degree of scalability. This means that as a business grows or contracts, it can very easily scale its Azure resources down or up. This can all be done with just a few clicks of the mouse, thus ensuring productivity and the bottom line are not affected.
Higher levels of securityWhile AWS does offer a high level of security to its cloud tenants, Azure makes their solutions rather simple to use. They’ve taken all the security features that are available in on-premises infrastructure and put them in the cloud. This means that there is virtually no learning curve because the tools that an IT Department once used are now replicated in Azure. The following are some of the major security technologies that are now available:
This is an acronym that stands for the Internet of Things. Essentially, this means that all of the objects that we interact with in both the physical and virtual worlds are interconnected together. Azure has been known to keep up with the latest technologies and trends surrounding IoT, offering businesses solutions that allow them to connect, monitor, automate, and model devices and applications—all within the cloud.
Flexibility to the latest conditionsThe perfect example of this is the COVID-19 pandemic. When it first hit, businesses were in a rush to get their employees set up to work remotely. Over time, Azure proved its worth in helping the newly established remote workforce access shared resources in a secure manner, as well as its M365 suite of Office applications.
Use of Artificial Intelligence and Machine LearningAlthough AWS also has its own suite of these tools, Azure has kept up with the latest advancements in these technologies. They have also made it easy for an organization to quickly create both AI and ML applications in rather short periods of time and deploy them in a quick manner.
Compliance lawsWhile Azure does offer tools to come into compliance with data privacy laws (as mentioned earlier), it does have one distinct advantage over AWS. Azure offers the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification, also known as the CMMC. This is where all defense contractors (and even their subcontractors) have to achieve a certain level of certification with the Department of Defense (DoD) before they can bid on contracts. Azure has a dedicated suite of tools that are designed specifically for meeting this objective.
As you can see, there are many advantages and benefits to using either AWS or Azure. However, the one you choose should depend primarily upon which platform will serve your own IT requirements and objectives best.