Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing service offered by Microsoft providing tools to build, deploy and manage applications. Azure provides virtual machines, websites, storage, and databases. The service has been made available in various regions since 2011. In this blog, we will discuss the advantages of Azure over Google cloud and AWS.
Are you running more than one cloud service? Which ones, and why?
You should run multiple cloud services for many reasons. You may be running an application that needs a particular cloud service, and you don’t want to migrate it over to another one. You likely have an existing data center or infrastructure that requires a specific type of clouds, such as on-premise or virtual infrastructure.
However, there are advantages to running multiple cloud services:
- Cost savings – You can combine different offerings from different providers into one bill, saving money by breaking up your cost across multiple providers. This also reduces administrative overhead when managing billing and support for each service, which can add up if done manually on top of using multiple providers. If a provider goes out of business or raises prices sharply (as Google did), this strategy would allow you more flexibility in switching providers without losing too much money already invested in them.
- Flexibility – Your circumstances change over time, and so do those of your customers; being able to quickly provision resources across different providers allows businesses the ability to respond quickly when necessary without having invested significant capital upfront into building out their infrastructure beforehand; this also allows companies to scale up/down usage as demand changes over time instead paying large fees upfront just because they need capacity now rather than later after investing lots into initial setup costs first.
Provisioning instances is simpler.
With Azure, you can provision instances in a single click. This model is based on preconfigured templates for you and doesn’t require any additional setup. The templates provide an image of the machine with all its software installed, including operating systems and applications such as SQL Server or MySQL (or other database solutions). Azure also offers preconfigured virtual machine images with specific functions like web hosting or load balancing already set up. All you need to do is select one of these options when deploying an instance.
Storage is simpler
Azure has a simpler approach to storage. Storage is organized into virtual disks backed by a storage account. A single Azure subscription can have multiple storage accounts that you can use for both your public cloud resources and your Azure Stack deployments. Storage accounts are available in Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, and the US.
More services are included
In addition to the fact that Azure includes more services in its basic package, it also offers more as add-ons and as part of its premium package than Google Cloud or AWS. For example, Azure’s premium offering includes a dedicated team of experts who will help you with your cloud strategy. At the same time, Google Cloud has no equivalent service, and AWS’ Prime offering only provides some phone support.
Additionally, Azure offers an even greater number of add-ons than either Google Cloud or AWS. While there are other differences between these providers (which we’ll talk about later), this one is notable because it could make or break your decision when choosing which platform best meets your needs.
Virtual desktops are easier to configure, use, and secure
Another major advantage of Azure virtual desktops is their ease of management. Since Azure virtual desktops are hosted in the cloud, you can access them from anywhere with an internet connection. The only difference between your physical desktop and an Azure one is that the latter is in the cloud—you don’t need to worry about installing software or backing up your data.
Google Cloud and AWS offer similar services but don’t have the same features as Azure. For example:
- In Google Cloud Compute Engine (GCE), you can only run Linux VMs on GPUs; Microsoft offers both Windows Server and Linux VMs on GPUs.
- Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) doesn’t support GPU-based instances; Microsoft does support those instances if needed for particular applications or workloads like artificial intelligence (AI).
Microsoft integration makes using Azure easy with a Windows-based IT infrastructure.
Microsoft integration makes it easy to use Azure with a Windows-based IT infrastructure. Microsoft offers many services in the Azure platform that integrate with other Microsoft offerings, including:
- Office 365
- Dynamics 365
- Azure SQL Database
For example, if you are already using Office 365 for email and file storage, you can add your database and web applications to Azure SQL Database.
The price for Azure is lower than Google Cloud and AWS in most cases
- Azure has a free tier that enables users to test new features before committing to a subscription. This is not available for Google Cloud or AWS, where you must pay to test their services.
- If you have a small project and need just one or two instances, then Azure might be the cheapest option as they offer “pay as you go” pricing, meaning that there are no long-term commitments or contracts required, so your costs only increase if your usage increases over time.
Azure is useful in a Microsoft-centric environment
Azure is useful in a Microsoft-centric environment. It’s also very easy to use with the Microsoft ecosystem.
Conclusion
Azure is a good option for IT pros already using Microsoft products and having an existing Windows-based infrastructure. It’s also useful for businesses that don’t want to spend money building their cloud infrastructure when they can use Azure instead. And if you need your data to be completely private, Azure might also be a good choice since it offers encryption at rest and in transit with no usage logs kept by Microsoft—something neither Google nor Amazon offers now.
