AWS (Amazon Web Services) and Azure are two of the most popular cloud computing platforms currently available in the market.
AWS is a cloud computing platform offered by Amazon that provides a wide range of cloud-based services such as computing power, storage, and databases to businesses and individuals. It offers an extensive range of services, including EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud), S3 (Simple Storage Service), and RDS (Relational Database Service), among others. AWS offers a pay-as-you-go pricing model, making it a popular choice for businesses of all sizes.
Azure is Microsoft’s cloud computing platform that provides similar services to AWS. It offers a range of cloud-based services such as virtual machines, databases, storage, and application services. One of the key advantages of Azure is its integration with Microsoft’s existing suite of products and services, such as Office 365 and Active Directory. Azure also offers a hybrid cloud solution, allowing businesses to run their applications on both on-premises servers and the cloud.
Both AWS and Azure offer scalable and flexible cloud computing solutions that can be tailored to meet the specific needs of businesses. While AWS is considered to be the market leader, Azure has been steadily gaining popularity due to its seamless integration with Microsoft’s products and services. Both platforms offer PaaS, SaaS, and IaaS models, although Azure also offers serverless functions.
With the AWS Free Tier, you can access 85 AWS cloud products and services that span across categories such as storage, compute, database, artificial intelligence, and IoT, among others. The AWS Free Tier comprises three types of free offerings:
For new AWS users seeking to optimize costs, it is recommended to check out the compute and storage options that are available as part of the 12 month free tier. For example, you can use a T2 or T3 micro instance of Amazon EC2 for 750 hours per month, or obtain 5 GB of object storage via Amazon S3 Standard Tier, along with 20,000 reads and 2,000 writes.
It’s important to note that the free tier has some restrictions, such as the option to switch from free to pay-as-you-go and geographical availability of different services.
Upon creating an Azure account, you’ll receive a $200 credit that you can utilize within 30 days of registration. You’ll also have free access to 54 services and products offered by the Azure cloud, which span categories such as compute, database, storage, security, and AI.
There are two free models available with an Azure account:
Similar to AWS, it is recommended to make use of Azure’s free storage and compute services during the first year. For instance, you can receive 750 hours per month for instances in the B1S Standard Tier running on Windows or Linux, or obtain 5 GB of Azure Blob Storage with 20,000 each of reads and writes.
Note that there are limitations on certain services and usage when utilizing the free offers on Azure, and it’s important to be aware of them. AWS vs. Azure: Pricing Models
To optimize costs, it’s important to choose the pricing model that suits your workload best. For example, for long-term cloud workloads, it’s recommended to purchase reserved instances to reduce expenses. On the other hand, fault-tolerant workloads can utilize spot instances to avail even larger discounts.
AWS provides four primary pricing models:
Azure provides four primary pricing options for cloud resources such as Azure VMs:
Here are some comparisons of similar offerings from AWS and Azure.
Cloud-based storage prices
The following Regions cover similar areas:
While these prices are similar, Azure is clearly more cost-efficient. However, it’s also important to consider additional costs, such as data transfer fees.
Compute prices
Here is a comparison of the two provider’s pricing for virtual machines in similar regions (East US and US East) based on the Linux operating system. This example setup has four vCPUs to run the following services using general-purpose instances or VMs:
Here is the pricing comparison for the equivalent compute-optimized instances and VMs:
Thus, Azure may be the cheaper option depending on the instance type, being less cost-effective for general-purpose instances but cheaper for many applications.
Understanding the pricing models of AWS and Azure is critical in optimizing cloud infrastructure costs. AWS and Azure offer similar pricing models such as on-demand, reserved instances, and spot instances, but there are subtle differences in terms of features, pricing, and discounts. For instance, Azure’s hybrid benefit allows customers to bring their own licenses, while AWS offers a flexible pricing model in the form of Savings Plans.
Additionally, AWS’s Spot Instances provide greater flexibility with advanced notification options compared to Azure’s Spot VMs. Ultimately, the choice of cloud provider and pricing model depends on the specific needs and requirements of the business.
Therefore, businesses should conduct a thorough analysis of their workloads, application requirements, and budget before selecting the most cost-effective pricing model offered by either AWS or Azure.
By Gilad David Maayan