AWS Vs Google Cloud – A Detailed Comparative Analysis – Intellipaat

When deciding on which cloud platform is the best, AWS, being the first one of its kind, always finds its way to the conversation. And, Google with its ground-breaking products already has everyone’s attention. So, when the talk of the town is about Google’s Cloud Platform, people just assume that it’s going to be as excellent as Google’s other products. And that is why it becomes consequentially important to compare these two major cloud platforms. So, how do you decide which one to choose? How do you conclude the big AWS Vs Google Cloud debate? Well, this blog is how you’ll get answers to all these questions.

This blog on AWS Vs Google Cloud highlights and elaborates the major factors of comparison between GCP vs AWS.

So, in this AWS Vs Google Cloud blog, you’ll be taken through the following topics:

Check out this GCP vs AWS video:

Without further ado, get started!

AWS Vs Google Cloud: Establishment

Amazon Web Services

Amazon Web Services is a subsidiary of Amazon, which provides an on-demand Cloud Computing platform to individuals, companies, and governments on a paid subscription basis.

Amazon was the first major cloud provider, and therefore it has more experience in the cloud domain than Google or other cloud providers. As one of the oldest cloud providers, it has been able to establish a bigger user base, as well as bigger trust and reliability factors.

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AWS was publicly launched in 2006 with service offerings such as Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), etc. By 2009, Elastic Block Store (EBS) was made public and services such as Amazon CloudFront, Content delivery network (CDN), and more formally joined the AWS Cloud Computing Service offerings.

Google Cloud Platform

Google Cloud Platform (GCP), which is offered by Google, is a suite of Cloud Computing services that runs on the same infrastructure that Google uses internally for its end user products such as Google Search engine, YouTube, and more.

As the world’s undeniable leader in web search, video sharing and streaming, email service, and what not, Google has proven its expertise in running data centers. After the launch of Amazon Web Services, Google also put this data center expertise to use and launched a suite of Cloud Computing services of its own.

Unlike Amazon, that began its voyage in Cloud Computing domain with IaaS offerings, Google stepped into the Cloud Computing domain with PaaS as its first public cloud service, which is called App Engine. Google Cloud Computing Platform was first launched in 2011. Even though it was a little late to the party, Google Cloud is definitely making up for the lost time with its reliable and cost-efficient Cloud Computing services.

Now, except for the fact that one was launched before the other (which by the way is bound to happen), what else is different in AWS and GCP? Well, the very basic difference between these two cloud giants is the availability zones.

Move forward to know more about the availability zones in AWS and GCP!

AWS Vs Google Cloud: Availability Zones

The ability to provide robust services with minimal possibility of outages is what every organization looks for in the cloud providers. Regions and availability zones are what that directly impact the robustness and the likeliness of outages, which is why availability zone has to be one of the top factors to keep in mind while choosing between these cloud providers.

A discussion on the availability zones of both cloud giants is given below:

Amazon Web Services

Being the first one of its kind, AWS has had a significant amount of time to expand its infrastructure. AWS is already hosting in multiple locations worldwide. AWS has been made available within 21 geographic regions all around the world. Every AWS region comprises multiple small geographic areas known as availability zones. AWS has 66 availability zones with 12 more on the way.

Google Cloud Platform

Google Cloud Platform has been made available in 20 regions all around the world with 3 more on their way, and it has 61 zones worldwide.

When it comes to market shares, AWS is leading with more than 30 percent of public cloud market share in its name. Google Cloud is making tremendous progress at a rate that is quickly reaching 100 percent but is still lagging behind AWS in terms of market share. The following graph depicts the market share and growth rate of top cloud providers.

With clearly more number of Availability zones and regions than GCP, AWS is the winner here.

According to a report from CNBC, even though Google Cloud is lagging behind AWS with $5.5 billion, it has crossed a $1-billion-per-quarter revenue by 2018. As Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, has held back the revenue disclosure of the year 2019, it’s unclear whether GCP is gaining on AWS in terms of market share in 2019, but it’s definitely not very far behind in the race.

So moving on with this Google Cloud vs AWS blog, let’s now look into the major customers of both cloud giants.

AWS Vs Google Cloud: Who Uses Them?

Amazon Web Services

So, winner as of now in terms of market share is AWS and winner in terms of growth rate is without any doubt Google Cloud.

Since AWS was established much before most of the cloud providers, including GCP, it has more experience and implementation in the cloud domain which has resulted in bigger community support. This is the reason why AWS has more high-profile customers like Netflix, Airbnb, Unilever, BMW, Samsung Xiaomi, Zinga, and more.

Google Cloud Platform

Where the early establishment and more experience has helped AWS gain a lot of high-profile customers, GCP has gained its own share of customers and user base due to the fact that they offer the same infrastructure that they use for Google Search, YouTube, and other Google products. This was more than a good enough reason for many hotshot organizations to go for GCP such as HSBC, PayPal, 20th Century Fox, Bloomberg, Domino’s, and more.

When we talk about who uses AWS and GCP, there is no one winner here since both have their own share of high-end customers. So, it’s a tie!

Moving forward in this GCP vs AWS blog, let’s learn about computing services offered by both cloud giants.

Now you will see, what both of these cloud giants have to offer in terms of services. The services that will be discussed here come under the domains of compute, database, storage, and networking.

Take a look at the mapping of service offerings from AWS and GCP in the domains mentioned above.

AWS covers up around 200+ services, whereas Google Cloud has been catching up with it with over 60 services. Compute Services

AWS does provide more services than GCP but GCP has all the necessary service offerings that are required for running any business. But if you want to go on the number of services, AWS is the clear winner here.

Database Services

AWS Vs Google Cloud: Downtimes

Storage Service

Having a comparatively more mature infrastructure, the maximum downtime phase experienced by AWS was in 2015 that lasted for 2 hours and 30 minutes. Whereas having a progressive infrastructure, Google faced a huge downtime in 2015 that lasted for 11 hours and 34 minutes.

Networking Services

As measures have been taken by both cloud platforms, it’s less likely for such downtime phases to happen again. However, it’s only natural that AWS gets preferred over GCP when downtimes are taken into consideration, as even the largest downtime faced by AWS was hours shorter than GCP’s downtime. That being said, the winner here is AWS.

AWS Vs Google Cloud: Pricing Models

Here’s a comparison between the pricing models of AWS and GCP on the basis of the machine type that they offer.

If you conclude here, then GCP definitely comes out as the winner in regard to pricing models. GCP offers billing on a per-second model which is way more cost-efficient as compared to AWS’ per-hour model billing. And not to forget, GCP even offers long-term usage discounts with no upfront costs.

As mentioned in the table above, with GCP, users get to save 25 percent per month on the same basic instance that AWS offers. The following graph depicts the percentage of savings in GCP when used in the long term.

Last but not least comparative factor for this Google Cloud vs AWS blog is Job Trends. So moving on with this Google Cloud vs AWS blog, let’s compare the job opportunities in both the cloud Giants

AWS Vs Google Cloud: Job Trends

Talking about the Job trends in AWS and GCP, if you look at the following graph, the stats show that there have been more job postings in AWS than in GCP.

By providing almost 50 percent cost efficiency, the winner here in case of pricing is Google Cloud Platform.

Now, this could be a direct result of the early establishment and large market shares of AWS. With 40 percent market shares, AWS clearly has had more job opportunities than GCP since 2015 till now, but that does not mean GCP can’t take over AWS in the future. GCP is still fairly young. With the growth rate at which GCP is making progress, it wouldn’t be a surprise if in a while GCP takes over AWS in the case of job trends.

Winner in case of Job Trends as of now is AWS.

So, who wins the overall cloud battle here? It’s time to conclude this debate on Google Cloud vs AWS. Before we go ahead and start weighing the pros and cons of both, one thing is for sure: Whoever comes out as the winner, GCP is a serious contender for AWS.

While AWS might be leading in terms of the number of customers, services, products, and market shares, GCP also tends to take the lead in terms of competitive as well as cost-effective pricing models and more customization options.

And if you consider the trust factor, then AWS, with its 5 years of a head start, surely does enjoy more trusted relationships with its clients. On the other hand, Google with its reputation for developing world-leading products surely makes Google Cloud Platform seem promising. So, all things considered, it would be better to say that the choice between Google Cloud vs AWS comes down to personal preference.

With this, you have come to the end of this blog on AWS vs Google Cloud. Hopefully, you found this blog informative. If you want to pursue AWS and GCP in depth, then do check out Intellipaat’s AWS Certification Training Course and Google Cloud Training and Google Cloud Platform Certification.

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