Seeking to transfer knowledge round within the cloud? Shifting large quantities of information has turn into a spine of enterprise. It’d contain switching from one cloud to a different, performing steady on-premises knowledge migration or repeatedly ingesting knowledge from a social feed with out devoted servers. Cloud migration generally is a one-time or steady course of.
Infrastructure as a service or platform as a service will be good beginning factors, however which service ought to a corporation use? Two of the most important, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, provide a whole lot of choices.
SEE: Hiring Kit: Cloud Engineer (TechRepublic Premium)
Bounce to:
What’s Google Cloud?
Google payments its Google Cloud migration companies as a streamlined however versatile method to transfer knowledge and apps to the cloud. The number of migration and modernization choices embrace automated companies, absolutely managed databases and choices for Oracle workloads and Microsoft SQL Server deployments. The Cloud Basis Toolkit (CTF) is constructed to information organizations by way of the method of migrating purposes. CFT supplies best-practice templates to rapidly get began in Google Cloud.
SEE: For extra info, take a look at our Google Cloud cheat sheet.
What’s Microsoft Azure?
Microsoft Azure cloud companies present cloud environments throughout on-premises, multicloud or hybrid codecs. The tech large payments Azure as an opportunity to “construct by yourself phrases,” with all kinds of companies and options. As well as, Microsoft emphasizes safety, compliance protection, the consumer having complete possession of the information and synthetic intelligence. Microsoft claims to supply the one cloud platform to run on hyperscale relational databases and supply a speedy NoSQL database with open APIs at any scale.
SEE: For extra info, take a look at our Microsoft Azure cheat sheet.
Google Cloud vs. Microsoft Azure: Comparability desk
| Options | Google Cloud | Microsoft Azure |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Pay as you go, hourly or month-to-month | Pay as you go, hourly or month-to-month |
| Free tier | $300 credit score, legitimate for 90 days | $200 credit score, legitimate for 30 days |
| Container as a service | Google Kubernetes Engine | Azure Kubernetes Service |
| Persistent Disk storage | Persistent Disk (HDD/SSD) | Azure Managed Disks (HDD/SSD) |
| Devoted Interconnect | Cloud Interconnect | ExpressRoute |
| Geographical vary | 35 areas | 58 areas |
| Progress price | Excessive | Low |
| File storage | Filestore | Azure Recordsdata |
| Most processors in digital machine | 96 | 128 |
| Caching | CloudCDN | Azure Cache for Redis |
| Key instruments | IoT, serverless and AI | Cognitive companies, supporting Microsoft software program |
Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure pricing
Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure have a variety of companies, and the pricing can differ relying on the precise service, area and utilization stage.
Free tier
Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure present a restricted free tier to new prospects after signing up, with particular assets. Google Cloud presents new prospects a $300 free credit score to run, check and deploy as much as 29 workloads, together with BigQuery, AutoML Imaginative and prescient, App Engine and Cloud Shell, as much as their month-to-month utilization limits.
Microsoft Azure additionally offers new prospects $200 in free credit to make use of in 30 days to create, deploy and handle purposes throughout a number of clouds, on-premises and on the edge. Some merchandise are free for the primary 12 months after signing up; this contains Digital Machines (Home windows and Linux), Azure SQL Database, Azure Blob Storage and Laptop Imaginative and prescient. Some merchandise are all the time free to Azure prospects as much as a specified utilization restrict; these merchandise embrace Azure Cosmos DB and Information Catalog.
Pay as you go
Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure comply with a pay-as-you-go pricing mannequin, permitting you to pay for the assets you devour with none upfront prices. The pricing can differ relying on the precise service, area and utilization stage. For example, Cloud Storage pricing is predicated on 4 key parts: geographic space, knowledge storage, knowledge processing and community utilization. In the meantime, Azure block blob storage pricing is determined by your area, the quantity of information saved per 30 days, the amount and kinds of operations carried out and the information redundancy choice chosen.
Use pricing calculator
You need to use the pricing calculators for Google Cloud or Microsoft Azure to estimate your prices, as companies could differ primarily based on geographical area, utilization quantity and particular options or add-ons. So as to get a customized quote, you will want to attach with a gross sales consultant for Google or Microsoft.
Function comparability: Google Cloud vs. Microsoft Azure
SSH-based machine entry
In Google Cloud, SSH key administration is easy and lets you effectively handle their entry keys. Customers can add, take away or replace SSH keys related to particular situations or customers, offering flexibility in entry management. Compute Engine makes use of key-based SSH authentication to ascertain connections to all Linux VM situations, and Home windows customers have the choice of enabling it for his or her VMs. Google Cloud permits Linux VMs to make use of metadata keys or OS Login to handle SSH keys, whereas all Home windows VMs use metadata.
Microsoft Azure presents strong SSH key administration for VM entry. Customers can add or create SSH keys and affiliate them with VM situations throughout deployment or afterward. Azure supplies a web-based SSH consumer throughout the Azure Portal, permitting customers to provoke SSH classes straight from their browser, which will be handy for customers preferring a graphical interface.
One main distinction between the 2 companies pertains to the working system. Naturally, Azure performs effectively with Home windows, as does Google Cloud, whereas Google Cloud’s SSH-based machine entry will be particularly helpful for Linux tasks.
Availability and edge deployments
Geographically, Azure is obtainable in a broader vary of areas internationally than Google Cloud. And each firms have excellent (99%) uptime.
By way of edge deployments, Google presents Direct Peering, whereas Azure doesn’t. Google’s Direct Peering permits a enterprise community to plug straight into Google’s edge community, serving to it enhance community efficiency and scale back latency for sure workloads.
Whereas Azure doesn’t provide a service referred to as Direct Peering like Google, it does present Azure ExpressRoute, which permits companies to create non-public connections between their on-premises infrastructure and Azure knowledge facilities. This helps enhance community efficiency and safety.
Storage Providers
Azure supplies superior storage options that cater to complicated enterprise wants. Google Cloud doesn’t provide as many superior storage options as Azure, but it surely makes up for it with inexpensive storage pricing and ease of use.
| Providers | Google Cloud choices | Azure choices |
|---|---|---|
| Block storage | Persistent Disk | Azure Disk Storage |
| File storage | Filestore | Azure Recordsdata |
| Object Storage | Google Cloud Storage | Blob Storage |
| Chilly Storage | Google Cloud Storage Nearline | Azure Archive Blob Storage |
| Sometimes accessed object storage | Cloud Storage Archive | Azure Archive Storage |
| Information Switch | Azure Import/Export Service | Storage Switch Service |
Synthetic intelligence and machine studying
Azure and Google Cloud provide AI and ML companies. Each merchandise have a variety of speech-to-text, DevOps and different purposes for AI/ML.
Google Cloud presents a set of AI and ML companies underneath the Google AI umbrella, together with Google AI Platform, Cloud AutoML and TensorFlow. Google is understood for its experience in AI, because of its historical past in creating machine studying applied sciences like TensorFlow and its management in AI analysis.
Azure’s numerous AI and ML companies embrace Azure Machine Studying, Azure Cognitive Providers and Azure Databricks. Microsoft has additionally made vital investments in AI analysis and improvement.
In the event you worth pre-trained fashions and APIs, want TensorFlow and wish user-friendly AutoML instruments, Google Cloud could also be useful to you. Microsoft Azure is good in order for you flexibility in ML frameworks and wish sturdy enterprise help.
Compute companies
Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure provide compute companies that cater to the wants of companies and builders with totally different use circumstances and necessities. See how the merchandise examine within the chart beneath.
| Providers | Google Cloud | Microsoft Azure |
|---|---|---|
| Digital machines | Google Compute Engine | Azure Digital Machines |
| Containers | Google Kubernetes Engine | Azure Kubernetes Service |
| PaaS | Google App Engine | Azure App Service |
| Computerized occasion scaling | Compute Engine Autoscaler | Azure Autoscale, Azure Digital Machine Scale Units |
| Serverless features | Google Cloud Capabilities | Azure Capabilities |
Safety
Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure are rigorously secured. Microsoft has confirmed compliance with privateness rules throughout 50 international areas. Google Cloud’s safety meets compliance throughout the globe as effectively, assembly many ISO requirements, GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA and extra, all of which Azure additionally covers.
Microsoft and Google provide bug bounties for safety researchers, drawing from each the impartial safety researcher group and their very own top-tier safety groups.
Networking
Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure provide complete networking capabilities, and the selection between them will rely in your particular necessities, present infrastructure and preferences. Right here’s a comparability of the 2 merchandise’ networking capabilities.
| Options | Google Cloud | Microsoft Azure |
|---|---|---|
| Digital networks | Digital Non-public Cloud | Azure Digital Community |
| Load balancing | Cloud Load Balancing | Azure Load Balancer |
| Content material supply community | Cloud CDN | Azure CDN |
| Community connectivity | Cloud Interconnect | Azure ExpressRoute |
| Monitoring and administration | Community Intelligence Heart | Azure Community Watcher |
| Premium networking | Community Service Tiers, Normal Tier | Web egress (routed over the general public ISP community) |
| Firewall | Cloud firewall | Azure firewall |
| Domains and DNS | Cloud DNS | Azure DNS |
Google Cloud professionals and cons
Execs of Google Cloud
- Google Cloud supplies numerous safety measures, together with Identification and Entry Administration, Key Administration Service and Safety Command Heart, which work collectively to strengthen your knowledge.
- Glorious integration with different Google companies.
- Gives customers with a scalable infrastructure to simply scale assets up or down primarily based on demand.
- Google Cloud presents strong instruments and companies for large knowledge analytics and machine studying.
Cons of Google Cloud
- Fewer international knowledge facilities than Azure.
- Google Cloud merchandise akin to BigQuery, Spanner and Datastore have restricted customization.
- Some customers reported that GCP has a fancy pricing construction.
Microsoft Azure professionals and cons
Execs of Microsoft Azure
- Azure facilitates fast collaboration for a number of customers.
- Glorious integration with different Microsoft companies.
- Hybrid cloud capabilities.
Cons of Microsoft Azure
- Requires platform experience.
- Buyer help will be improved.
- Assorted efficiency in several geographies.
Ought to your group use Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud?
Relying on the service tier, Google Cloud presents serverless migrations that scale back or remove downtime, replicating knowledge repeatedly. Organizations can transfer VM-based self-hosted databases to Google Cloud to take their palms off managing the infrastructure and as a substitute counting on Google’s help, efficiency and catastrophe restoration capabilities. Every undertaking can contain as much as 2,000 connection profiles and 1,000 migration jobs.
Microsoft Azure Migrate has equally streamlined capabilities, with a single dashboard for the entire technique of migrating databases, purposes, mainframes or VMs. This single interface supplies a centralized view of your entire migration course of, making it simpler to plan, execute and monitor migrations effectively.
Different comparisons could come right down to the granular wants of your group, akin to the quantity of reminiscence and storage disks you want, bodily location and the way you wish to pay. For extra info, examine the companies to IBM Cloud or AWS Cloud, and browse our overview of data migration.
Methodology
To assessment each cloud platforms, we collected the first info from the official web sites and documentation for Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure. We reviewed respected rankings from prospects and different professional opinions from credible sources. We additionally weighed every software’s compute functionality, storage service, ease of use and buyer help.