Cloud storage is a cloud computing model in which data is stored on remote servers accessed from the Internet, or ‘cloud.’ Additionally, this data is maintained, operated, and managed by a cloud storage service provider that oversees everything. Recent researches have shown that 2 out of every 3 global businesses, 65% to be precise, are using some kind of cloud-based storage. In the US, this number is extremely high with about 93% of small businesses backing up some part of their data with some cloud provider.

Have you ever wondered why cloud storage has become so popular? Is it just another marketing technique from the tech giants to try to capitalise on the next big thing? Well, it surely is not one! Cloud storage is extremely crucial and it offers a lot of benefits to the businesses as well as individual users.

However, the safety and benefits that you can derive from the cloud majorly depend on the quality provided by the Cloud Service Provider. There are three big names in the industry who have been in this business for years and have earned a great deal of respect and goodwill in the field of cloud storage. Amazon Cloud Offerings by AWS, Google Cloud Platform by Google INC and Azure by Microsoft are the prominent names in the field of Cloud Storage. But, nothing in this world is 100% good. There have to be some cons to it as well. So let us discuss the pros and cons of these Cloud Services Providers.

Amazon Cloud Offerings by AWS:

Amazon Web Services, i.e AWS is very high quality and premium service which offers a lot of benefits to the businesses. Therefore, if you are planning to move to AWS for their cloud services, there are a few things which you need to know beforehand, so as to determine if the offerings are benefitting your organisation.

Pros:

• Offers an entire set of tools with a huge variety of functions for the users.

• Has been perfecting Cloud Computing Services since 2006.

• Has been considered as the Gold Standard for reliability, security, configuration option & monitoring.

• The AWS cloud ecosystem and product offerings are seen as a benefit to consumers.

• It has more than 5 times compute capacity when compared to its competitors.

• Various Datacenter “Regions”.

• All major software vendors make their programs available over the AWS platform.

Cons:

• A steep learning curve might exist, depending on the comfort level of the Businesses with AWS Services.

• Enterprise level support needs to be purchased.

• AWS started the on-demand billing for services bandwagon very late.

• AWS does not have a very powerful hybrid cloud strategy for the businesses who want to keep their sensitive data in a private cloud.

  • A vast catalogue of offerings might be confusing and difficult to navigate for some users.
    

There have been some high profile outages in the past years. Still, Amazon Cloud Services has been widely considered as a reliable product for customers who are seeking enterprise cloud services today.

Azure by Microsoft:

Azure offers the businesses a suite of resources which are very familiar to them. Microsoft has been dominating the Cloud Storage industry with the quality and array of options that they have been providing.

Pros:

• Has a very strong enterprise community presence.

• The billing plans are very flexible.

• Has one of the strongest suits of Microsoft – Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS).

• It is greatly reliable & scalable.

• Available across almost the entire globe.

• When compared to the competition, Azure is significantly Cost-effective.

• If the business is already using a lot of Microsoft software, it will be super easy to integrate this service with your existing Microsoft software.
  

Cons:

• Experts at Gartner have had to suggest a good disaster recovery plan for the users of Azure as there have been quite a few Outages.

• Limited functions when compared to AWS.

• Will best support if Windows operating system & not a good option if you are using anything else.

• The customers are required to carry out Enterprise Management.

It is true that there have been occurrences of outages, but this is not just with Azure. However, there have been great efforts from Microsoft to instil confidence and trust in the businesses and they have been really successful in doing this. They have been able to earn a really great reputation for the superior quality of services that they offer to the businesses.

Google Cloud Platforms by Google:

The Cloud Services of Google make it very evident that Google is a technology powerhouse. If a business is planning to choose Google Cloud services, they should consider the following advantages and disadvantages to make a better choice for their business.

Pros:

• Has an excellent reputation in the open-source community.

• They are well established and have brought about modern innovations in the field of Cloud Computing.

• Very flexible pricing.

• Greener than most of their competitors and also working on getting the required credentials.

• At the top when it comes to building containers.

Cons:

• Unlike companies like Microsoft, Google has not been focused on supporting large enterprise projects.

• Outages have created some wonder, provided the product is reliable.

• Lacks innovation when it comes to the variety in the range of functions. Should focus on catching up with Microsoft and AWS in this aspect.

As Google is a company which thinks about the future well in advance and have so much to offer, they should utilise all the resource in the best way possible. However, they are engaged in so many small project innovations, which has left limited options for the larger companies.

If you wish to move your business onto a cloud, get in touch with us today! Our cloud solutions help businesses with high availability and failover. Improve system productivity and tackle downtime with the help of our reliable services.