If your enterprise business isn’t heavily investing in the cloud, you’re definitely in the minority. As a part of the global IT budget, enterprise software is forecast to experience the highest growth, with an 8.3 percent increase in the coming year, primarily by the adoption of cloud services (forecast to grow at more than 22% this year, contrasted with 6 percent for all other forms of software). Driven by the desire for digital transformation at the enterprise level, as well as a focus on cost efficacy and scalable IT infrastructure, cloud adoption is poised for record-setting growth.
But if you’re planning on expanding your enterprise cloud investment this year, a wealth of choice awaits. Cloud services by Amazon, Google, Oracle, and Microsoft Azure are leading the charge, each with proprietary features to help enterprise businesses shift existing businesses processes to the cloud, as well as help them leverage cloud platforms to derive value from emerging technologies such as the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and business intelligence.
What’s a discerning enterprise to do? With so much riding on cloud investment throughout the next year, how can you find the absolute best cloud service for your business? If you’re looking to invest in virtual servers, or IoT platforms, or cloud databases, how can you ensure you’re getting the most bang for your IT buck?
This blog post will aim to clarify some of the differences between the major cloud players on the market and help you determine the best option for the forthcoming cloud explosion.
Cloud Services by Amazon
Amazon has been a major player on the cloud market since early 2006 when they adapted the infrastructure they used to support their retail operations into a publically available cloud offering (Amazon Web Services, or AWS). The Amazon Web Services portfolio is comprised of more than 100 services, including those for databases, application development, infrastructure management, and security.
Google Cloud Services
Similar to AWS, the commercial Google Cloud Platform (GCP) sprung from the internal infrastructure Google used to support products such as Gmail and YouTube. Google Cloud Services encompass over 90 services relevant for enterprise IT, including compute, storage and databases, networking, cloud AI, IoT, and more.
Oracle Cloud Services
Oracle launched their Oracle Cloud offering in 2011, including Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (Paas), and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) options for business. Oracle also recently acquired NetSuite, widely regarded as the first ‘cloud computing’ company, to bolster their cloud portfolio.
Microsoft Azure
Launched in 2010 as Windows Azure, the Microsoft cloud services platform known as Azure includes over 600 services, providing one of the most robust cloud service offerings on the market. With cloud services in compute, mobile services, cloud storage, messaging, media services, machine learning, and more, the Azure cloud platform offers one of the most comprehensive end-to-end cloud services available today.
Now that you’re familiar with the major players on the market, let’s take a look at the contrasting services they offer.
Compute
All four of the major cloud services provide virtual servers to boost compute capacity and elasticity for enterprise organizations. Amazon’s EC2, Microsoft’s Azure Virtual Machine, Google’s Compute Engine, and Oracle Compute all offer multiple instance types of varying capacities, able to be tailored to specific workload types and applications, such as accelerated computing jobs. They also provide container management services that allow for scalable containerized application deployment, app development in Java, PHP, and Python, though only Microsoft Azure offers shared web hosting for powerful web applications.
Storage
One of the biggest benefits of migrating your enterprise to the cloud is the ability to scale storage for the vast amounts of data generated by your business, and pay only for as often as that data needs to be accessed by delineating between hot and cold storage options. Amazon’s S3 service, Azure Blob Storage, Google’s Cloud Storage, and Oracle’s Object Storage provide scalable data storage for backup, analytics, and archival. Two of these options, Amazon and Microsoft, also offer hybrid cloud storage options that can help reduce storage costs by up to 60%.
Database
Amazon, Microsoft, Oracle and Google cloud services all provide data warehousing, relational and non-relational databases, all powered by SQL. These scalable databases provide high-availability to data that can be parsed and analyzed to extract valuable analytics and insight into your business. While all of the major cloud services offer robust databasing capabilities, only Microsoft Azure offers a native Business Intelligence application to layer on top—as well as extensive data migration capabilities from your existing database, whether cloud, hybrid, or local.
Choose the Best Cloud Service for your Business
If you’re planning on migrating or expanding your cloud infrastructure in the coming year, you’ll want to choose the most flexible and advanced service provider available to ensure you’re avoiding costly redeployments or migrations in the future. If you’re not sure where to start, that’s where we can help. At Tigunia, we specialize in cloud managed services and know the ins and outs of stretching your resources in the cloud.
Contact our team today to learn more about moving your business and operating in the cloud.
