Unlocking the full potential of cloud computing is paramount for business in today’s digital landscape. In this captivating vendor spotlight, we dive into the dynamic world of leading cloud providers, shedding light on their exceptional services and outstanding accomplishments in the field of cloud computing. Utilizing the potential of cloud computing has become essential for businesses looking for scalability, creativity, and agility in today’s fast-changing digital landscape. A small number of cloud service providers stand out among the large field of others as innovators, influencing the direction of the sector. Welcome to our fascinating vendor spotlight, where we set out on a thrilling journey to investigate the top public cloud service providers that are boosting businesses to new dimensions of success. Imagine a world where companies seamlessly take advantage of the cloud’s limitless potential, breaking down barriers and embracing an innovative future. This is exactly what the major players of the industry provide: a doorway to an endless spectrum of possibilities. These public cloud providers are redefining the way businesses run by enabling them to achieve previously unthinkable levels of productivity, efficiency, and expansion through their cutting-edge technology, solid infrastructure, and a full range of services. Four cloud service providers dominate the global cloud market: Alibaba in China and the Asia-Pacific region, and AWS, Microsoft, and Google in other nations. Google Cloud, Alibaba Cloud, AWS, Microsoft Azure, Oracle, and IBM represent the top 6 cloud market vendors. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the focus of our first look because it is the pioneer and inspiration behind the cloud revolution. With its Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3), AWS provides a wide range of services, from scalable storage to elastic computing power. AWS raises the standard for excellence by giving companies of all sizes the resources they need to reach new heights thanks to its enormous global infrastructure and steadfast dedication to security and dependability. Microsoft Azure is the next big participant in the public cloud sector. Azure offers a vast array of services that cover computation, storage, networking, and artificial intelligence in addition to smoothly integrating with Microsoft’s ecosystem. Azure’s hybrid features provide companies the power to connect on-premises and cloud infrastructure, ushering in a new era of adaptability and scalability. In the world of Google Cloud Platform (GCP), where creativity and cutting-edge technology rule supreme, our search continues. GCP’s robust data analytics capabilities, demonstrated by services like BigQuery, enable businesses to mine huge amounts of data for insightful information that fosters innovation. Our next destination is IBM Cloud, a market leader famous for its solutions tailored to specific industries and enterprise-grade services. IBM Cloud is positioned as a reliable ally for businesses with complicated IT requirements thanks to its strong infrastructure and knowledge in fields like blockchain and quantum computing. For companies looking to take advantage of the potential of cloud computing, IBM Cloud’s focus on hybrid cloud solutions provides seamless interaction between on-premises infrastructure and the cloud.
TOP cloud service providers;
AWS
AWS, an affiliate of Amazon and a pioneer in the cloud service industry was launched in 2006. One of the first platforms for cloud computing to be widely used is this one.
Market Share of AWS
With 31% of the global cloud market, Amazon is the market leader in IaaS, according to Canalys. The company’s projections for the 2020 fiscal year’s financial performance were surpassed. AWS reported revenues of $45 billion in 2020, a 30% increase from those reported in 2019.
Services Offered by AWS
For a variety of use cases and sectors, AWS offers more than 175 cloud services. Amazon EC2 (computing power), Amazon RDS (relational databases), Amazon S3 (cloud storage), Amazon CloudFront (content delivery service), and Amazon Glacier (web storage service) are the top five most popular Amazon services. Customers of Amazon are able to use constantly accessible virtual computer clusters with EC2. Although most services don’t directly interact with customers, they do offer functionality to app developers via APIs.
AWS Price
Depending on the hardware, software, or networking solutions selected, AWS prices are based on a pay-as-you-go model. A single virtual AWS machine or computer cluster can be purchased by subscribers. Amazon provides security for the bought systems under subscription terms.
AWS Capacity
AWS dominates the IaaS and PaaS markets and is a pioneer in the vast majority of cloud services offered globally. Business-critical workloads are frequently deployed by large organizations to Amazon rather than any other cloud provider. The business has a significant global network of 67 top consultancy partners and managed service providers. Businesses view AWS as a strategic cloud infrastructure provider. From servers to embedded operating systems in Edge devices, and all the technology in between, AWS offers end-to-end solutions.
Weaknesses of AWS
Despite stated price cuts, several services, such as the AWS computer service, have remained the same in cost since 2014. If a customer is dependent on Amazon products, it could be difficult to migrate to a different service provider because AWS emphasizes their best cloud services. Utilizing fewer than 20% of acquired services, which can be difficult and time-consuming to re-engineer and optimize, is another difficulty. The costs for AWS cloud services are reasonable, but if they aren’t managed, they could become very high.
AWS Advantages
AWS offers a flexible and cost-effective application hosting platform for providers, ISVs, and vendors. With flexible services, users can easily select the operating system, programming language, web application platform, database, and other services needed. AWS provides a virtual environment for loading software and services, easing migration and preserving options for new solutions. With Amazon’s global computing infrastructure, AWS enables scalable and high-performance applications, while ensuring security through end-to-end measures.
Microsoft Azure
After AWS, Microsoft Azure is a close second. The business offers a wide selection of services geared toward businesses. Microsoft Azure releases dozens of new products, services, and improvements every quarter as a result of years’ worth of research and development work. Azure is the best-in-class hybrid cloud vendor that provides the flexibility to rapidly provision computer resources as needed.
Market share of Microsoft Azure
According to Canalys, Microsoft Azure holds a 20% market share among IaaS cloud service providers. Microsoft Azure’s revenue increased by 50% in Q2 2021 compared to the prior quarter, producing $17 billion in profits for the business. According to the company’s Q2 2021 financial report, the accelerating demand for Microsoft Azure solutions has climbed by 34% year over year. In the second quarter of 2021, the number of seats for Microsoft Enterprise Mobility—a service that includes Microsoft products like Azure Active Directory, Endpoint Configuration Manager, Microsoft Intune, Microsoft Defender, etc.—grew by 29% to 163 million.
Offerings of Microsoft Azure’s Cloud
There are about 600 services in Microsoft Azure. As part of its IaaS service, Azure provides virtual machines (VMs), Active Directory to synchronize on-premise directories, and single sign-on functionality. Along with data management solutions like Azure Data Explorer, Azure SQL Database, Severless, CDN, Azure AI, Azure Blockhung Workbench, Azure IoT, and other services, the corporation also offers mobile engagement with real-time analytics and tracking of user activities.
Cost of Microsoft Azure
Cost-wise, Microsoft Azure is comparable to AWS. There are various use cases where Azure is more cost-effective compared to AWS. However, Google Cloud is less expensive than AWS and Azure. There is currently no standardization among cloud service providers; no two cloud service providers offer the same price in the same manner.
The Strength of Microsoft Azure
Microsoft Azure offers diverse service offerings with partnerships with Oracle, VMware, and SAP. With 32 managed service provider networks, Azure leads the PaaS segment with Azure DevOps and Visual Studio Codespaces. It also provides Azure DevOps and Visual Studio Codespaces, enabling public cloud and developer tools like Visual Studio Code.
Weaknesses of Microsoft Azure
The cost of Microsoft support is high. Additionally, compared to other cloud service providers, Microsoft Azure has a lower percentage of availability zones. However, there is still space for enhancements to service availability and resilience-centered reengineering initiatives. Additionally, Azure doesn’t offer its clients any kind of capacity assurances; this includes reserved instances and pre-paid contracts. Some Microsoft Azure users were unable to provide the cloud capacity they had already paid for during the COVID-19 increase.
Pros of Microsoft Azure
Organizations employing Microsoft services will benefit greatly from Azure. Microsoft Azure is a major participant across all use cases and offers reliable cloud services. This comprises edge and all-encompassing cloud services, in which other cloud vendors lack sufficient expertise. New customers of Microsoft Azure are given a $200 credit good for 30 days.
Google Cloud
After AWS and Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud is ranked third among cloud service providers in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant. With the usage of Antos, which enables users to manage workloads on Google, AWS, and Azure, Google Cloud has significantly boosted its hybrid and multi-cloud workload during the past year. Additionally, the developer community has embraced Firebase, a cloud mobile Backend-as-a-Service (BaaS) that Google purchased. Even though Firebase is a BaaS platform built on top of Google Cloud, it continues to be in high demand.
Google cloud Market Share
According to Canalys, Google Cloud has a 7% market share in the market for infrastructure as a service. Google made significant investments in hiring salespeople in 2020, which led to a $5 billion operating loss and a $13 billion revenue overall. However, in order to expand the company and increase its profitability, these procedures were necessary.
Google Cloud Offerings
There are 100 products available on the Google Cloud platform, which can be divided into six categories: big data (Big Query for data analysis, Dataflow for batch and streaming data processing), storage, databases, computing and hosting (servers, containers, VMs), networking (VPC, load balancing, cloud DNS), computing and hosting (computing and hosting), networking, and machine learning (AI platform).
Google Cloud Cost
There is a pay-as-you-go option with Google Cloud. Understanding the costs based on workloads, locations, and other variables can be aided with a pricing calculator and bespoke quotations. For 90 days, Google Cloud offers $300 in free credits to new clients who begin executing cloud processes with them. Additionally, Google Cloud offers a specific program for entrepreneurs, and they can receive early starting credits worth at least $2,000 to use.
Google Cloud Strength
With its tools like TensorFlow, ML Kit, and Google Datasets, Google Cloud distinguishes out in its capabilities for big data, machine learning, and data science. TensorFlow and TPUs (Tensor Processing Unit, an application-specific integrated circuit that accelerates artificial intelligence) are among the tools that make up its end-to-end AI platform, which is built on the most recent technological advancements.
Google Cloud Weakness
Positioning Google as an enterprise-class IaaS solution is difficult. Some of its products are not yet as fully packaged as those provided by Google Cloud’s competitors, AWS and Microsoft Azure, and they have not yet attained the same degree of enterprise maturity. Similar to other cloud vendors, Google Cloud has a smaller pool of knowledgeable managed service providers.
Google Cloud Benefits
Customers of Google Cloud don’t need to worry about vendor lock-in because the company’s primary services (Kubernetes, TensorFlow, and Istio) are open source and have subsequently become standards in their respective industries. These services have had a big impact on how enterprise IT is deployed, scaled, and managed in the cloud.
Alibaba Cloud
Alibaba Cloud, following AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud, is ranked a respectable fourth among cloud service providers according to a Gartner report. It was established in 2009 to provide platform support to the Alibaba Group, but it is also selling various cloud products to companies all over the world.
Alibaba Cloud Market Share
The largest market share for IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) and IUS (Infrastructure Utility Services) among cloud providers in China and Asia-Pacific belongs to Alibaba Cloud. Alibaba will be the fourth-largest Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provider in 2020 with a 6% market share in the cloud. Thanks to COVID-19, which sparked a surge in cloud adoption and digitalization around the world, Alibaba Cloud reported positive earnings growth in its most recent quarterly financial report in December 2021 for the first time in 11 years.
Alibaba Cloud Offerings
PaaS and IaaS are offered by Alibaba Cloud. It creates VMs (virtual machines) that leverage the Elastic Compute Service using both the Xen and KVM hypervisors, which are both a part of Alibaba’s cloud architecture. Alibaba also provides a CDN (content delivery network), a Cloud Container Service based on Docker, an Apsara Stack private cloud that is already setup, a number of database services based on Apsara DB, and a Cloud Intelligence Brain (an AI platform).
Cloud Cost
Comparing prices with international cloud service providers, Alibaba Cloud is about 25% less expensive. In countries like the USA, Alibaba Cloud responds more slowly than other cloud service providers. However, compared to foreign cloud providers, Alibaba Cloud offers better CPU and memory usage, making it more appropriate for hosting heavy application workloads in the area.
Alibaba Cloud Strength
In terms of performance, security, and availability, Alibaba Cloud’s PaaS and IaaS offerings are on par with those of major service cloud providers. Alibaba Cloud solutions are an option for businesses in Asia-Pacific and China who want to use cloud computing at scale in this region of the world. In order to compete with other cloud providers, such as those in the Middle East, Alibaba is still expanding its infrastructure and footprint to new areas. Large programs can be successfully hosted on Alibaba Cloud, which is scalable to handle peak user numbers.
Alibaba Cloud Weakness
With the exception of South Asia, Alibaba is only lightly used in other regions of the world. Certain services might only be accessible in certain locations utilizing specified computing instances. Alibaba’s worldwide offering is more constrained than Alibaba China’s in terms of third-party software integrations and operational tools. For it to truly become a worldwide cloud service provider, investment in foreign markets is required.
Alibaba Cloud Benefits
In comparison to the public ISP between the US and China, Alibaba Cloud services like Express Connect have a 44% lower average network latency. Zero network packet loss was obtained when using Alibaba Cloud, compared to intermittent 15% packet loss when using the public Internet. In terms of network consistency, Alibaba Cloud outperformed the public ISP by 75% for traffic between the US and China. Due to its unlimited bandwidth and superior infrastructure in South Asia and China, Alibaba Cloud offers greater predictability than the public Internet.
Oracle Cloud
AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and Alibaba are the top four cloud service providers, and Oracle Cloud is in fifth place.
Oracle Cloud Market Share
With a 2% market share in the cloud, Oracle is ranked sixth worldwide. According to Oracle’s financial results report for 2021, the company’s revenues increased 3% year over year. Cloud licensing prices increased by 4% in 2020. The growth of Oracle isn’t all that strong, and it’s much behind its top rivals.
Oracle Cloud Offerings
Oracle provides 65 cloud services, including well-known ones such as CloudEvents, Terraform, and Kubernetes. Oracle provides an Autonomous Database, a service with greater performance that uses machine learning to self-optimize and self-repair. Additionally, the business offers dedicated areas in data centers, edge computing, clustered databases, bare metal GPUs, and database machines.
Oracle Cloud Cost
Customers of Oracle who have in the past purchased licenses for conventional software-related services are eligible for a discount if they choose to operate workloads in the cloud. Overall, Oracle Cloud is more expensive than AWS. Oracle, however, provides a pay-as-you-go pricing structure where the IaaS and PaaS services are only billed for the resources consumed.
Oracle Cloud Strength
Oracle Cloud and Microsoft Azure have a solid cooperation that enables users to distribute their workloads between the two clouds. This guarantees an extra level of interoperability. With no need to redesign the cloud architecture, its customers can deploy the entire stack of apps in a multi-cloud environment while maintaining excellent performance and resiliency. Additionally, Oracle customers can move their current workloads and applications or create cloud-native applications using a combination of Oracle Cloud and Microsoft Azure services.
Oracle Cloud Weakness
Despite the fact that two of the three founders of Snowflake (a data warehousing solution) spent more than ten years working there, the solution is not yet accessible on Oracle. Due to the negative view of Oracle’s viability, some of Oracle’s clients who use both Oracle and Microsoft Azure wish to restrict the use of Oracle Cloud. For companies that have previously relied on Oracle database services, the fact that Oracle has a relatively modest market share in database PaaS is crucial. However, not all of the new products have been embraced by Oracle’s clients. The business has taken many steps in introducing new solutions, such as Oracle Cloud Functions, that allow developers to construct, run, and grow applications in a serverless environment.
Oracle Cloud Benefits
With its thorough design and cloud services that are fairly competitive with those offered by other cloud vendors, Oracle distinguishes out among other cloud providers. Unlike other cloud providers, Oracle offers all of its services concurrently across all of its international locations. For customers with on-premise needs who wish to store their data in their own data center and behind a private firewall, the business now provides a Dedicated Region Cloud@Customer. Oracle gives new clients a $300 discount and a free tier with no time restrictions.
IBM Cloud
Among cloud service providers, IBM Cloud is ranked sixth. Instead of going head-to-head with the big cloud service providers, IBM has increased its reliance on Red Hat (a business it acquired in 2019 that offers open-source products for businesses) to hasten the adoption of hybrid cloud services across all of its products. With the help of the Red Hat acquisition, IBM was able to extend its resources and capabilities while acquiring a technology foundation for its cloud platform that includes security and portability across numerous clouds. In the following three years, IBM wants to double Red Hat sales.
IBM Cloud Market Share
IBM has a market share in the cloud that is less than 5%. Although RedHat’s revenue climbed by 18% and IBM Cloud revenue by 20% in 2021, overall IBM earnings decreased by 4.5%. 2020 saw IBM purchase seven businesses with an AI and hybrid cloud focus. In particular, IBM recently bought Turbonomic (a provider of solutions to oversee Kubernetes and application performance). Turbonomic technologies are very useful for multi-cloud workloads and hybrid cloud architectures that include cloud and on-premise workloads.
IBM Cloud Offerings
IBM lists 174 cloud services for analytics, IoT, logging & monitoring, networking, storage, containers, databases, developer tools, and security.
IBM Cloud Cost
IBM frequently analyzes the cost of its cloud computing services. However, some situations have total costs that are higher than those provided by IBM’s competitors. IBM provides discounts for monthly usage, and the total cost is determined by the agreed-upon rate.
IBM Cloud Strength
IBM is attempting to transform into a hybrid cloud and AI business. The business made significant investments in 2020 to promote its cloud strategy. In particular, IBM bought Instana, a hybrid cloud application performance management business, in 2020. IBM was able to expand its own Kubernetes-based containerized cloud offerings thanks to Instana. Additionally, IBM Cloud is a good choice for older applications, especially for databases that require a lot of RAM.
IBM Cloud Weakness
The 22% revenue growth for IBM Cloud is lower than the 45–50% growth rates for AWS Cloud and Microsoft Azure. The legacy services it offers have made IBM Cloud a complicated platform. Because the corporation occasionally does not adopt the most recent models, IBM is regarded as a laggard in the market for cloud service providers.
IBM Cloud Benefits
IBM Cloud provides 11 short-term free trial items and 20 cloud services that are always free. Additionally, the business offers limited-time promotions, with 10 products now on the list. The fact that IBM Cloud offers ticket-based 24/7 assistance with its free subscription is extremely helpful.
Short Flashback:
Comparing the major cloud service providers, AWS, Microsoft Azure, Alibaba Cloud, Google Cloud, Oracle Cloud, and IBM, involves assessing their strengths, weaknesses, market presence, offerings, and pricing. Let’s delve into a comprehensive comparison:
- Market Share:
- AWS: Leading the market with a dominant 31% global cloud market share, AWS is the undisputed frontrunner in the cloud service industry.
- Microsoft Azure: Close second with a 20% market share, Azure remains a strong competitor and enjoys significant adoption among businesses.
- Alibaba Cloud: Boasting a 6% market share, Alibaba Cloud shines as the leading cloud provider in China and the Asia-Pacific region.
- Google Cloud: Holding a 7% market share, Google Cloud secures its position as a formidable player in the cloud computing landscape.
- Oracle Cloud: With a modest 2% market share, Oracle Cloud lags behind the top players but remains a viable choice for certain enterprises.
- IBM Cloud: With less than 5% market share, IBM Cloud faces tough competition but focuses on hybrid cloud and AI services.
- Offerings and Services:
- AWS: Offers a vast array of over 175 cloud services, including EC2, S3, RDS, and CloudFront, catering to various use cases and industries.
- Microsoft Azure: Provides approximately 600 services, including VMs, Azure Data Explorer, AI platform, and more, with seamless integration into Microsoft’s ecosystem.
- Alibaba Cloud: Offers PaaS and IaaS services, VMs, CDN, Cloud Container Service, and AI platform, with a focus on serving the Asia-Pacific market.
- Google Cloud: Distinguishes itself with its robust data analytics capabilities, TensorFlow, ML Kit, and AI platform, offering cutting-edge technology for big data and machine learning.
- Oracle Cloud: Boasts 65 cloud services, including Autonomous Database, dedicated areas in data centers, and edge computing solutions.
- IBM Cloud: Provides 174 cloud services, including analytics, IoT, networking, storage, and databases, with a particular emphasis on hybrid cloud and AI services.
- Pricing:
- AWS: Operates on a pay-as-you-go model, allowing customers to pay only for the resources they consume.
- Microsoft Azure: Offers flexible pricing, and while some use cases may be cost-effective, it may be relatively more expensive compared to Google Cloud.
- Alibaba Cloud: Known for being cost-effective, offering pricing that is about 25% less expensive than international cloud providers.
- Google Cloud: Provides a pay-as-you-go option and is generally considered less expensive than AWS and Azure.
- Oracle Cloud: May offer discounts for customers who previously purchased conventional software licenses, but overall, it is often more expensive than competitors.
- IBM Cloud: Frequently evaluates costs, and while some services are competitively priced, others may have higher total costs compared to rivals.
- Strengths:
- AWS: Unmatched global infrastructure, extensive service offerings, and strong security measures.
- Microsoft Azure: Seamless integration with Microsoft’s ecosystem, strong hybrid cloud capabilities, and a wide range of services.
- Alibaba Cloud: Strong presence in the Asia-Pacific market, cost-effectiveness, and high performance in the region.
- Google Cloud: Cutting-edge technology, impressive data analytics capabilities, and open-source services promoting interoperability.
- Oracle Cloud: Unique interoperability with Microsoft Azure, specialized offerings like Autonomous Database, and global service availability.
- IBM Cloud: Focus on hybrid cloud and AI services, strong partnership with Red Hat, and catering to older applications and databases.
- Weaknesses:
- AWS: Some services may lack cost competitiveness, and customer lock-in could be a concern for some businesses.
- Microsoft Azure: Higher cost compared to certain competitors, limited capacity assurances, and challenges in global market penetration.
- Alibaba Cloud: Limited adoption outside the Asia-Pacific region, constrained worldwide offerings, and need for investment in foreign markets.
- Google Cloud: Challenges in positioning as an enterprise-class IaaS solution and some products may lack maturity compared to competitors’.
- Oracle Cloud: Modest market share in certain segments, resistance from customers, and perceived complexity due to legacy services.
- IBM Cloud: Slower revenue growth compared to top players, complexity in platform, and relatively smaller market share.
Major cloud computing providers with distinct strengths and drawbacks include IBM, AWS, Azure, Alibaba Cloud, Google Cloud, and Oracle Cloud. With its wide services and global infrastructure, AWS leads, while Azure provides easy integration and powerful hybrid cloud capabilities. In the Asia-Pacific region, Alibaba Cloud excels, whereas Google Cloud provides cutting-edge technology and sophisticated data analytics capabilities. Oracle Cloud provides unparalleled interoperability with Microsoft Azure, as well as specific services such as the Autonomous Database. Using its cooperation with Red Hat, IBM Cloud focuses on hybrid cloud and AI services. For a successful and revolutionary cloud journey, businesses must carefully analyze their individual objectives and goals before selecting the cloud provider that best corresponds with their criteria.
