1.

Service Offerings
The final selection of the cloud provider finally comes down to the needs of a customer,
the processes they are moving to the cloud. We have also seen organizations use both
providers for different use cases - although most of them prefer to stick to just one.

If you look at the services offered by AWS and Azure, they offer a similar set in most
cases - for storage, computation and networking. Both AWS and Azure keep investing in
new cloud services and adding a number of tools which customers might need. For
instance, both support Hadoop clusters through Elastic Map Reduce (AWS) and
HDInsight (Azure). Both companies have also introduced ML tools, mobile hub, IoT tools
etc.

The storage options provided by both are also comparable - S3, EBS, Glacier etc on
AWS vs Storage service, Blob Storage, backup etc on Azure. They both also support
NoSQL (DynamoDB and DocumentDB) and relational databases.

There are however differences as well - which when considered in an enterprise setup
can make a huge difference. Some of them are listed below

 EC2 instances are billed by the hour by AWS whereas Azure bills by the minute
 Microsoft’s Hyper-V container technology is interoperable with Azure - which provides an
advantage to those who run it in their data centers

2. Pricing
Pricing is always a major consideration when moving to the cloud - the entire operation
of cloud migration is expensive - and so every penny saved matters. With the fierce
competition amongst cloud providers, the customer wins by often seeing price cuts for
the services offered. AWS has been a cheaper option but Microsoft is catching up fast.

Both AWS and Azure provide price calculators for their services (AWS price
calculator, Azure calculator) and also offer free tiers for customers to test the waters
before jumping all in.

3. Customers
Another factor organizations take into consideration before selecting a provider is their
customers. A competitor using a provider can often provide insights on how their
services are advantageous in their sector. And AWS clearly wins here.

AWS has a lot of big-ticket names to boast of as customers - including Netflix, Dow
Jones, Airbnb, Atlassian, Vodafone among others. Microsoft has lesser number of large
customers compared to AWS, but it has managed to get quite a few names on board like
GE, Essar, NBC among others.

4. Other Pros & Cons

AWS Wins

One major benefit of AWS is the large number of third party services
its marketplace offers - this can be a huge pro for its customers.

Another advantage is its flexibility compared to Azure. When customers are looking for a
mix of Microsoft and non-Microsoft services for their technology stack, AWS comes to
your rescue by providing the ability to build your solution the way you want it. A lot of
open-source solutions available can be run on Linux servers which AWS offers.

A third major advantage AWS offers is the platforms - if you want to run anything other
than Windows Server, Azure would not be the best for you. As of now, Azure currently
only provides limited support for Linux OS.

Azure Wins

AWS does fall short on certain parameters compared to Azure though. For instance, the
sheer number of offerings AWS has - while it is an advantage - can also be a deterrent -
it becomes a little difficult to manage at times.

Another major win for Azure is that Microsoft services are already used in a lot of
organizations and linking Azure to on-premise MS systems can be a breeze.

The development and testing tools provided by Azure are also superior when compared
to AWS.

So - what is best for my organization?

Generally speaking, looking at both the offerings, AWS definitely has an upper hand
over Azure. It is more mature as a cloud offering and has the first-mover advantage over
competition. The many services it provides, along with support for multiple platforms,
makes it ideal for large organizations. Their continuously growing infrastructure also
provides an economy of scale which helps in lowering implementation costs.

But that does not dismiss the fact that Azure is quickly catching up with AWS. And they
are playing well on their obvious advantage of strong ties with on-premise software -
helping more organizations move to a hybrid cloud solution where needed. For
organizations which are already heavily into Microsoft in terms of infrastructure and
technology skills, for most Azure would be a strong contender.