When it comes to cloud-based service providers for businesses, two big players in the field stand out: Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS). Both are robust cloud computing systems that provide a better, cost-effective alternative to managing on-premises systems.
Amazon began offering cloud computing services to businesses in 2006 via its service AWS. Since then, it's grown to provide scalable, low-cost cloud computing infrastructure to hundreds of thousands of businesses across the world, reaching 190 countries. On the other hand, Microsoft Azure was launched in February of 2010 and has evolved to be a robust enterprise cloud-based ecosystem that embraces Big Data, the Internet of Things (IoT), Machine Learning (ML), and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to improve the system and its potential functionality. Microsoft is also one of the first companies to embrace edge computing in the name of efficiency and improving system performance.
These days, both platforms are heavily used by the world's largest companies-AWS is used by big players like Epic Games, Expedia, Trustpilot, and Hulu, while Microsoft Azure is used by Ubisoft, The UK's National Health Service, Walgreens, and T-Mobile. And these are by no means exhaustive lists.
In other words, both AWS and Microsoft Azure have grown considerably since their inception, offering functionality that will work for most organizations with no issues.
For organizations looking to move away from on-premises systems and into the cloud or to improve their existing cloud infrastructure, choosing between Microsoft Azure and AWS requires a very careful look at various factors, including:
Let's start by explaining what the platforms can do, discussing each platform's specific technology, and then getting into more granular side-by-side comparisons between the two.
With cloud computing, the delivery and execution of IT resources are handled over the internet, meaning that organizations don't have to purchase and maintain their own data centers and servers. Large cloud providers such as Microsoft and Amazon offer a variety of cloud managed services that are either fully or partially managed by the provider, reducing the burden on an organization's IT team. Further, cloud computing allows organizations to scale as their needs change, so if more computing power is needed, more storage, or more databases, cloud computing allows them to gain what they need easily and fast.
Specifically, cloud computing from a business perspective allows organizations to:
In other words, cloud computing is a broad term that encompasses delivering hosted services over the internet. These services include infrastructure as a service (IaaS), which is the building blocks for a cloud-based IT environment, Platform as a service (PaaS), which focuses on the deployment and management of applications without the need to manage hardware and operating systems, and finally software as a service (SaaS), which provides a complete virtual product experience that the software provider wholly manages.
At a high level, cloud computing executes the above list of services through a process called virtualization. What virtualization means is that the computing power that's needed to run an application, use a desktop, or host a website takes place entirely over the internet, with data centers and servers doing the heavy lifting behind the scenes to handle computing power, security, access, and user experience.
The main benefit of cloud computing for businesses is that they don't have to maintain their own hardware, like servers and databases, and can instead rely on cloud service providers to maintain that infrastructure for them. For businesses using the cloud, this translates to cost savings, lower IT overhead, and more secure technical operations.
Two major players in the cloud computing space are AWS and Microsoft Azure. While both offer platforms that have similar basic functionality, the main difference between the two is the technological approach to providing the above list of services.
In the next two sections, we'll break down the specifics of each platform, starting with Microsoft Azure.
Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing platform offered by Microsoft that enables the virtualization of computer hardware using software (with Azure being the software). It offers a wide range of cloud-based services. Azure allows professionals to build, deploy, and manage applications and desktops in a centralized cloud-based virtualization environment.
In addition to the above, Microsoft Azure also offers cloud-based storage solutions, allowing businesses to back up and store their data safely and securely via the cloud.
IT administrators, CXOs, and other decision-makers can choose the services they need with Azure thanks to a flexible pay-as-you-go payment structure where you only pay for the computing services you use.
Azure works on cloud-based virtualization. This means that the computer hardware is “virtualized” in software, using an abstraction layer (a fancy name for creating a layer of separation between two things) called a hypervisor. The hypervisor emulates all the functions of a computer in a virtual machine. Multiple virtual machines can be run at the same time with Azure.
A high-level overview of the Microsoft Azure infrastructure.
The scalability of Microsoft Azure is where it really gets interesting. Using Microsoft data centers throughout the world, cloud-based virtualization environments can be set up at scale for globally-distributed businesses.
Each data center has a large number of racks filled with servers. Each server has a hypervisor that can run multiple virtual machines. A network switch provides connectivity to each server, and one server in each rack runs a piece of software called a fabric controller. A fabric controller is connected to an orchestrator (as shown in the image above), which manages everything that happens in Azure, including responding to user requests.
So to explain more about how the process works, when a user makes a request to start a virtual machine, the orchestrator packages everything that's needed to respond to this request, picks the best server rack (the one closest to the request), and sends everything to the fabric controller, which then creates the virtual machine. Once the virtual machine has been created, the user can connect to it.
Azure offers a wide variety of future-ready cloud-based products and services that are tailored to help organizations bring their ideas to life. These products and services include:
Similar to Microsoft Azure, AWS offers a cloud-based virtualization platform that provides computing power, storage, and databases to organizations on a pay-per-use basis. The organization can partially manage the technology that powers these services or be fully managed by Amazon.
The basic approach to virtualization with AWS is also the same as Azure; when a user requests a virtual machine, AWS connects that request to a data center, where the appropriate server accepts the request, prepares what's needed to fulfill the request, and then creates the virtual machine.
However, AWS offers a wide range of products, which they break down into two main categories to make it easier for organizations to choose what works for them:
Essentially, an organization can pick and choose different cloud-based products based on the base use case or get more contextual recommendations based on the industry they work in. There are literally hundreds of different cloud services or solutions that administrators can choose from and customize their AWS virtualization environment based on their needs, so it makes sense for Amazon to categorize their offering in this way.
While Amazon offers a large number of cloud products provided by Amazon and its partners, the featured services that cover the basics of what AWS offers include:
To break it all down, let's compare the similarities and differences between Microsoft Azure and AWS in more detail:
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Since the pandemic thrust remote work into the spotlight for many organizations, arguably one of the most important uses of Azure and AWS is desktop and application virtualization. Virtual desktop and application technology allows employees to work from anywhere, using any device, and maintain the same experience that they would if they were working from a desktop computer in an office.
Just like we compared Microsoft Azure vs AWS from a high level in the previous sections, let's compare the application and virtualization solutions from each vendor:
Feature |
Amazon Workspaces |
Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) |
Operating system support |
Supports Windows and Linux |
Windows operating systems only |
Remote access |
Desktop as a service |
Desktop as a service |
Security |
Offers enterprise-level security with encryption and multi-factor authentication |
Offers enterprise-level security with encryption, and multi-factor authentication |
Supports open-source development tools such as Ansible, Jenkins, Docker, and GitHub |
Natively supports Windows development tools such as Visual Basic Support, Active Directory, and SQL databases |
|
Does not support multi-session deployments |
Supports Windows 10 and Windows 11 multi-session virtual desktops using tools like Azure Lighthouse |
There are a few considerations when comparing the pricing for AWS workSpaces vs Azure Virtual Desktop. The below table compares the pricing approaches for each vendor:
Amazon WorkSpaces Pricing |
Azure Virtual Desktop Pricing |
Three different pricing options are available:
|
AVD pricing is based on two factors:
|
Navigating the different pricing structures for both platforms requires understanding:
With that being said, viewing the pricing pages for AWS or AVD can be confusing. They essentially both require you to input different aspects of your estimated usage, including the above, but also want you to deal with the licensing you'll need.
Determining Microsoft licensing is one of Amaxra's main services. We'll help you optimize your Microsoft licenses so that you're only paying for what your organization needs. As your Microsoft Gold Partner, we'll audit your existing licenses and recommend cutting costs without removing functionality.
The technologies behind virtualization are different. Both companies use their own proprietary virtualization technologies, which have different approaches to how computational power is delivered and prioritized, how access and security are handled, how applications and virtual machines are managed and maintained, and much more. However, from the user's perspective, both Azure and AWS accomplish the same goals.
However, the biggest difference as to why Microsoft Azure is typically the better solution for most enterprise organizations is cost.
Microsoft Windows is the most widely used computer operating system in the world, accounting for over 70% of the total market share for the desktop, tablet, and console OS market in August 2022.
While the above statistic includes consumer data, the majority of organizations worldwide use Microsoft Windows and related products like Microsoft 365, which gives Azure Virtual Desktop a bit of a leg up since there is no additional cost for users that already have a Microsoft license. This means that organizations that already pay for Microsoft licenses for their employees' Microsoft desktops and applications don't have to pay an additional cost to use Azure Virtual Desktop.
Further, AVD is designed to work seamlessly with Microsoft products, allowing organizations to unlock added functionality and ensuring that users who are already familiar with using Microsoft products will be able to enjoy the same experience, no matter what device they are using to access the virtual desktop or applications.
When it comes to choosing whether to go with AWS or Azure, the final decision comes down to which operating system your organization uses and licensing costs. Azure usually wins out since the majority of organizations use Windows operating systems and applications.
Navigating your Microsoft licensing, however, can be a daunting task. It's best practice to audit the licenses your organization pays for regularly, but with constantly changing licensing requirements and other considerations, figuring out exactly what your organization needs and doesn't need requires a significant time investment.
Instead of delegating Microsoft Licensing to your IT team, let Amaxra handle the particulars for you. We can determine what licenses you need and eliminate the ones that you don't need, saving your organization time and money.
Contact Amaxra today for a consultation.
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