Who knows the importance of making the right decision better than those working in a startup? The limitation does not always have an adverse effect, sometimes, they serve in making the optimal decision. With the limited resources, you have to make the best decision if you are working with a startup company. We assume you are reading it because you need help making a decision for your company.
Congratulations! You will make the best decision so far in your work life. We are here to give you all the necessary data points. With this blog post, the best output you can expect is to have the wisdom required to select among many cloud service providers; in the next 10 minutes, you’ll have that. We will be posting two parts of this blog, by the end of PART-2, you will have a solid answer in your hand. Let’s start with PART-1 now!
There are various cloud services that you can explore, but we will pick the top 3 in the market. Of course, you know the big 3, i.e., Microsoft Azure, GCP (Google Cloud Platform), and AWS (Amazon Web Service). There may be a possibility that you can think of picking up any one of these without analysis just because they all are famous ones, is it? If yes, please don’t do this!
What should you do before picking up a cloud service?
First, let’s understand what is required to pick the exemplary cloud service. It is very important to know your primary problem statement for any service you seek.
The first question you should answer here is why you want to leverage cloud services? There must be a challenge that you are facing, right? And to be honest, you’ll never get rid of challenges in this journey. So it’s better to start practicing the right approach to solve problems, may it be anything. Sit with your team, brainstorm the idea of moving your infrastructure to the cloud, and then pick the one aligned with your problem statement.
Now that you know the main problem you want to solve by migrating to the cloud, the next step is to pick the best one available in the market. Any idea how many players are in the market? It doesn’t matter, though. But I am sure you can name the top three in the market, i.e., AWS (Amazon Web Service), GCP (Google Cloud Platform), and Microsoft Azure.
Free Credits Offered by AWS, GCP, and Azure
| Cloud Provider | Free Credits | Market Share % |
| AWS | Up to $100K (for 1 year) | 49.2 |
| GCP | Up to $100K (for 2 years) | 9.1 |
| Azure | Up to $150K (for 1 year) | 33.1 |
Now let us dive deep into all three providers and analyze them to find the right fit for you.
1) Amazon Web Services(AWS):-
Amazon is the market leader in public cloud services, covering almost 49% of the
market share. AWS serverless technologies such as Amazon Kinesis Streams,
Amazon SQS Queues, and AWS Lambda Functions offer a seamless and flexible
data collecting flow.
There are many functions of AWS:
- It uses Elastic Block Storage supported by Windows and Linux that provides a high
- variety of auto-scaling tools to optimize high-performance computing.
- A variety of storage facilities are provided like S3 Object Storage, Persistent Block
- Storage, file storage, etc.
- The best quality of services for AI/ML workload management.
- Swift app deployment programs and highly organized and documented web
- services.
- A very beginner-friendly interface for optimum user accessibility.
- Elastic load balancing and caching with the best documentation.
Pricing:
AWS offers pay-per-hour, and the extremes of pricing are:
> Minimum: $69/Month (2 Virtual CPUs + 8 GB RAM)
> Maximum: $3.97/Hour (128 Virtual CPUs + 3.84 TB RAM)
You can also opt for the free 12-month trial period and always-free services that are
provided by Amazon and filter them based on your requirements.
2) Google Cloud Platform(GCP):-
GCP is an appealing alternative to both AWS and Azure due to its user-friendly UI,
reduced rates, preemptible instances, and configurable compute options. As Google
jumped into the Cloud Service field late, it has the lowest market share of about 9%.
Here are some of the best features that GCP offers:
- Google encrypts all data and communication connections, including traffic
- between data centers, at the highest level.
- Finely structured database and storage services, also the compute engine
- services are supported by Windows and Linux
- Best in Dev-Ops and a fully optimized container-based model
- Specially crafted for cloud-native businesses and backed by the open-source
- community
- Cloud CDN caching with top-quality documentation
- Nearline and Coldline backup services for accessed data
Pricing:
Google compensates for its lack of functionality by being cost-effective. It offers substantial discounts for long-term use. It also uses a pay-per-second model.
> Minimum: $52/Month (2 Virtual CPUs + 8 GB RAM)
> Maximum: $5.32/Hour (160 Virtual CPUs + 3.75 TB RAM)
Moreover, it also provides some additional discount features to attract users. Additionally, Google provides its users with a free USD $300 credit that they may use to purchase Google Cloud goods.
Each platform provides a unique set of services. You must select the one that best meets
your development requirements. Each of the three cloud platforms is distinct in its own way
and provides a myriad of possibilities for enterprises to choose from based on their own
needs.
3) Microsoft Azure:-
Microsoft Azure is also a great alternative for AWS or, for instance, any other cloud
provider. It has a market share of 33%, ending up in the second position. Firstly they
targeted the developers by creating the software and platform rather than the
infrastructure and later expanded to laaS services.
The functions of Azure include:
- Azure offers a wide selection of storage cloud options to meet the needs of
- various businesses like Data Lake and Queue storage.
- You can select any language, tool, and framework.
- High-quality documentation with Redis Caching while providing services for
- AI/ML workloads.
- It can efficiently run SAP and HPC high-end workloads.
- Connect within the Microsoft products through the App-connectors and avail
- more scalability options.
- Provides High-Quality Back-Up services also.
Pricing:
Azure provides the pay-as-you-go pricing facility that is charged on a per-second basis and is determined by several aspects, including the degree of management, the capacity required, and the location.
> Minimum: $70/Month (2 Virtual CPUs + 8 GB RAM)
> Maximum: $6.79/Hour (128 Virtual CPUs + 3.89 TB RAM)
It also has a free tier that allows you to use some models for free permanently and for free for the first 12 months exclusively.
Therefore, it is really important for your company to know about the requirements and the
end goals before jumping to a conclusion!
Now that you know every basic offering and functionality of these big 3 cloud providers, we will get into the problems in each one, take a deep dive, and land on the best fit for your startup. We will be coming back soon with Part-2 with everything you need to select the right cloud provider for your startup, making you ready to take the leap. Before that, if you think that you need to have expert advice, you can get in touch with us at contact@opslyft.com. We have a team of experts that can look into your problems and suggest the best solution.
Happy cloud computing!
Sources:
AWS Activate for Startups, Founders, & Entrepreneurs
Google for Startups Cloud Program
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/startups/Global IaaS and PaaS hyperscaler market share 2020-2022, by vendor.