Cloud Computing: AWS, Azure, Google Cloud

 Cloud Computing: AWS, Azure, Google Cloud

Cloud computing allows for a cost effective solution to data storage and application hosting. Cloud computing has revolutionized the ability to scale business operations in a flexible manner. Three main providers of cloud services are: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). 

Cloud computing is the delivery of architecture over the internet for computing services which include: servers, storage, databases, networking, software, and analytics. This solution allows for the elimination of owning and maintaining physical on site datacenters and servers, which can instead be accessed on demand over the cloud for the businesses paying for what they use. 

Cloud computing has three different primary service models. 
-Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): Provides fundamental infrastructure such as virtual machines, storage, and networking. Examples of such from the big three companies are AWS’s EC2, Azure Virtual Machines, and Google Compute Engine.

-Platform as a Service (PaaS): Offers a platform to build, deploy, and manage applications without having to deal with the underlying infrastructure, which is ideal for startups or a short term cost effective solution. 

-Software as a Service (SaaS): Delivers software applications over the internet, which is managed completely by the provider. This includes software such as Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, and Salesforce. 

Benefits

Allows for scalability by giving the ability to adjust resources due to the demand of the consumer, which allows for cost effective solutions while also maintaining performance during peak times. This allows for both scalability and flexibility of resources and maintenance. There are built in redundancies, data center locations, and safety measures to include very minimal downtime of services. Companies that offer these services are known for advanced security, which they offer in their products as well. These include advanced encryption, compliance, and robust protection of data. 

AWS

One of the first major innovators in cloud computing is AWS from Amazon. It has multiple services that involve computing, storage, databases, machine learning, IoT, and more. AWS is known for having the largest footprint of data centers across the globe, and is known for a high degree of developer support.

1. Computing: Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) allows for deploying virtual servers with custom configurations for each business's needs. It can easily be scaled larger or smaller to meet computing tasks. Specific settings such as auto scaling and elastic load balancing ensures that traffic is handled gracefully and efficiently. It also has features such as instances (the virtual servers themselves), Amazon machine images with preconfigured templates with included components. Amazon EBS volumes with persistent storage volumes for data, and more. 

2. Storage: Amazon S3 offers cloud storage with scalability, security, and performance.

3. Databases: Amazon RDS supports multiple database engines to cater to a wide variety of needs and current databases. These include popular engines such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Oracle. Amazon’s DynamoDB can be used for NoSQL databases. 

4. Machine Learning: AWS SageMaker simplifies the process of building, training, and deploying machine learning models. SageMaker allows for collaborating from a studio using AWS tools during the development processes, while maintaining a high level of enterprise security. 

5. Networking and Content Delivery: Gives the ability for networking and content delivery to be deployed to the cloud while maintaining high reliability, security, and performance. 

Google Cloud

Aspects that Google Cloud has expertise in is data analytics, machine learning, and open source technologies. 

1. Computing: Google provides Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) with the ability to run containers automatically using Kubernetes, which is integrated seamlessly with the rest of Google’s ecosystem and other cloud services. GKE allows for automatic updates and scaling for containerized applications. 

2. Storage: Google Cloud Storage is well known for being popular for storing unstructured data. It unifies object storage and has different storage types. Standard storage- best for storage that will be frequently accessed and stored for brief periods, being moved around a good amount. Nearline storage- low cost, and durable for data that is infrequently stored, accessed, and manipulated, can be stored for 30 days. Coldline storage- very low cost and for infrequently accessed data, stored for up to 90 days. Archive storage- Lowest cost, highly durable, for data archiving, backup, and disaster recovery, stored for 365 days. 

3. Big Data and Analytics: Google’s BigQuery is an AI ready platform that is used as a serverless data warehouse. It has real time detailed analytics and supports massive datasets and SQL like queries can be used. Allows for batch processing and reliable messaging for architecture events. 

4. DevOps and CI/CD: Contains continuous integration and delivery pipelines, and allows for managing container images and artifacts. 

Azure

1. Hybrid Cloud: Azure Arc allows for managing on site, cloud, and edge environments which can be utilized in a hybrid configuration. It allows businesses to extend their on site data centers while also utilizing cloud storage and computing. 

2. Computing: Azure Virtual Machines support Windows and Linux environments, and also similar to KGE by Google, Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) allows for managing containerized applications. 

3. Storage: Azure Blog Storage allows for scalable object storage of unstructured data. Disk storage is optimized for high performance, providing low latency block storage. 

4. Security: Azure Active Directory is a robust access management service, while also supporting single sign on (SSO), and multi factor authentication. 







https://cloud.google.com/storage?hl=en


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