While Amazon is the largest and most established cloud provider, Google is fast catching up. If you are considering an AWS or a Google Cloud migration, or debating switching between the two, it’s important to understand what each environment offers in terms of storage, computing capabilities, and pricing options. In this post, we’ll examine how Google Cloud compares to AWS in terms of storage, compute, and pricing, and show how BKPlus Software can help you manage your cloud storage.
What is Google Cloud?
Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is a cloud computing service that offers hosting on the same infrastructure Google uses for its end-user products, such as Google Search, Gmail, and YouTube. It provides various services, including computing, storage, networking, big data, machine learning, and security on a pay-as-you-go ground, with no upfront costs and no long-term contracts.
GCP is built on top of the open source infrastructure of Google App Engine, which is a part of the larger Platform as a Service (PaaS) family of products. It comes in two versions: the standard version, which is a public cloud offering, and the enterprise version, which is a private cloud offering. GCP is also available as a managed service called Google Cloud Platform for Business, designed for businesses that want to outsource their IT infrastructure to Google.
GCP is a highly convenient platform that can help build and deploy applications of all types, including web, mobile, and gaming. In addition, GCP offers a variety of tools and services that can be used to manage, monitor, and optimize applications.
What Is Amazon Web Services (AWS)?
AWS (Amazon Web Services) is a comprehensive, evolving cloud computing platform provided by Amazon that includes a mixture of infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and packaged-software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings. AWS services can offer organization tools such as compute power, database storage, and content delivery services.
Amazon.com Web Services launched its first web services in 2002 from the internal infrastructure that Amazon.com built to handle its online retail operations. In 2006, it began offering its defining IaaS services. AWS was one of the first companies to introduce a pay-as-you-go cloud computing model that scales to provide users with computing, storage, or throughput as needed.
AWS offers many different tools and solutions for enterprises and software developers that can be used in data centers in up to 190 countries. Groups such as government agencies, education institutions, nonprofits and private organizations can use AWS services.
How is Google Cloud Different From AWS
These two cloud computing platforms differ in terms of database options, computing services, networking and storage features, and overall security features and services. Let’s dive deeper into these Google Cloud and AWS differences to help you decide which platform may be a better option for you.
Computing Services
As mentioned, cloud computing services are web-based and provide computing resources on demand. Developers can use them to build and run their applications without worrying about managing the underlying infrastructure. Here’s how GCP and AWS differ in the offered products and services.
Google Cloud Platform provides users with:
- Google App Engine: As a platform-as-a-service product, Google App Engine allows developers to create web applications on a remote server.
- Google Compute Engine: This is an infrastructure-as-a-service offer that provides virtual machines for many purposes.
- Google Kubernetes Engine: The GCP’s managed container service allows users to deploy and manage containers on GCP.
On the other hand, AWS delivers the following computing products:
- Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud: Amazon’s infrastructure-as-a-service offering provides users access to virtual machines.
- Amazon EC2 Container Service: This is Amazon’s container service that allows for easy management and deployment of containers.
- AWS Lambda: A serverless computing platform or AWS Lambda helps developers run code without provisioning or managing servers.
Networking Features and Services
Both GCP and AWS offer quality networking features and services. In terms of GCP, these include:
- Cloud DNS
- Cloud VPN
- Cloud Load Balancing
AWS, on the other hand, provides:
- Amazon Route 53
- Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)
- AWS Direct Connect
Although all these offerings are of good quality, you may want to consider your needs before opting for one or another. For instance, load balancing in Google is excellent in terms of speed, as it can load 0-1 million requests per second with no pre-warming. Meanwhile, AWS elastic load balancing can automatically scale to meet your needs.
Storage Features and Services
Both GCP and AWS offer convenient storage features and services. In the case of the former, these include Cloud Storage, Cloud SQL, and Cloud Spanner. The latter provides Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3), Amazon Glacier, and Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS).
While we can say that both platforms are well equipped with storage features and services, Google may be one step ahead, especially for customers working with AI and big data. For instance, Google Cloud Spanner can process up to two billion queries per second at peak, and Google Bigtable over five billion requests.
GCP’s clients are currently processing data beyond petabytes thanks to BigQuery, which can take terabytes of data per second. Moreover, Google’s Vertex AI is highly competitive in big data analytics. It can train and deliver machine learning models with 80% less code. Therefore, if you are looking for big data and analytics, the best storage service will be GCP.
Database Options
GCP and AWS offer databases with different capabilities. The former provides users with:
- Cloud SQL
- Cloud Datastore
- Cloud Bigtable
On the other hand, AWS’s databases capabilities include:
- Amazon DynamoDB
- Amazon SimpleDB
- Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)
Security Features and Services
Security is one of the top priorities of all businesses with an online presence. Therefore, GCP offers the following advanced security options:
- Cloud Identity and Access Management (IAM): This allows you to control who has access to your cloud resources.
- Cloud Key Management Service (KMS): The service helps you manage and rotate your encryption keys.
- Cloud Security Scanner (CSS): As the name suggests, the CSS scans your cloud resources for potential security vulnerabilities.
- Google Cloud Armor: This product protects your applications from web attacks.
- Google Identity-Aware Proxy: The proxy verifies the user’s identity before allowing access to your Google Cloud resources.
AWS also has high user protection in place, including:
- Amazon Identity and Access Management (IAM): This allows you to control who has access to your AWS resources.
- Amazon CloudWatch: As a monitoring service, CloudWatch helps you keep an eye on your AWS resources and applications.
- AWS Elastic Beanstalk: The service aids you in deploying and managing your applications on AWS.
- While Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Amazon Web Services (AWS) offer various security features and services, consumers prefer GCP due to its advanced security capabilities. Google Cloud Platform integrates with Google’s other security products, such as Google Cloud Armor and Google Identity-Aware Proxy. It also offers various tools and services to help you comply with data security and privacy regulations, such as the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).
In fact, among the top reasons for not moving to the cloud, security tops the list. Findings show that most businesses hesitate to use cloud services because of security risks, regulatory requirements, and a lack of internal development skills. GCP addresses one of these concerns by offering numerous security guarantees and data protection mechanisms.
Google Cloud vs AWS Price Comparison
As we’ve already mentioned, GCP and AWS are both popular cloud providers, but how do they compare when it comes to pricing? As with most of their features, these two platforms offer different types of customers.
First and foremost, GCP offers a per-minute billing, while AWS charges by the hour. With AWS, you can also opt for a Sustained Use Discount, which can save you up to 30% on your bill, or a Preemptible VM option, which can cut computing costs by a whopping 70%.
It should also be emphasized that GCP comes with a monthly usage model, while AWS offers a pay-as-you-go model. Ultimately, the price comparison between AWS and Google Cloud comes down to your preferences and capabilities.
Google Cloud vs AWS: Which One is the Best Choice?
GCP and AWS both are good platforms. Therefore, before deciding you should understand what type of feature your organization needs and how much you want to pay for them. Remember that the right cloud service provider helps you achieve your business goal by enhancing the functioning of your organization. Since AWS is the market leader in features and reliability our vote will tilt towards them.
In the end, the answer to which is better depends on the individual needs of your business. Whatever that answer looks like, do your research, follow our Google Cloud vs AWS guide, and make the best decision for your business.
Conclusion
In conclusion, both AWS and Google Cloud deliver diverse computing services matching users’ requirements. Based on the strengths and weaknesses explained above, you can choose a brand that aligns best with your business needs.
BKPlus Software has seasoned experts to help global clients around the world reach the journey to the cloud. We also have executed various cloud migration projects using the Google Cloud Platform. Whatever your size and industry are your businesses, we have a tailored plan for the best-optimized solutions.
