Meet the big three: AWS, Google Cloud and Azure

Outcome

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to name the three largest cloud providers, match their service names to the same basic ideas, and explain why many companies use more than one.

1. Concept

Many companies rent computers to the public, but three are much larger than the rest. You will hear their names in every cloud conversation.

The three providers

Amazon Web Services (AWS). Run by Amazon. AWS is the oldest of the three large public clouds and has the longest list of services. People often describe AWS products by their short names, such as EC2 and S3.

Google Cloud (often called GCP, for Google Cloud Platform). Run by Google. It grew out of the systems Google built for its own search and video products, and it is known for data analytics and for Kubernetes, a tool you will meet in I.5.

Microsoft Azure. Run by Microsoft. Azure is a common choice for companies that already use Microsoft products such as Windows Server, Office and Microsoft’s sign-in system, because they connect to it easily.

There are other providers too, such as Oracle Cloud, IBM Cloud, Alibaba Cloud and many smaller ones. The ideas in this track apply to all of them.

Same ideas, different names

All three rent the same basic things. They just give them different names. Here are the main ones you will see on a bill:

A virtual machine (VM) is a slice of a big physical computer that behaves like a computer of its own. When you rent “a server” in the cloud, you nearly always get a VM. Object storage is a store for whole files (photos, backups, logs), charged by how much you keep. A container is an app packed together with everything it needs, so it runs the same on any machine; I.5 covers it. You do not need to remember the table. You only need to know that when two providers use different names, they often mean the same thing.

How they differ

The differences that matter to a beginner are practical rather than technical:

• Names and screens. Each has its own console (the website you manage things from), its own words and its own layout.
• How you organise things. AWS groups things into accounts. Google Cloud uses projects. Azure uses subscriptions and resource groups. I.4 covers this.
• Prices. Each publishes its own price list. The same kind of machine rarely costs exactly the same on two providers.
• Discounts. Each has its own way of giving you a lower price if you promise to use something for a year or more.

Why companies use more than one

Using two or more providers is called multi-cloud. It happens for ordinary reasons. One team chose AWS years ago and another chose Google Cloud. The company bought another company that ran on Azure. A particular service is better on one provider. Or a customer requires it.

Multi-cloud is common, and it makes cost harder to read, because each provider’s bill looks different. That is why later tracks teach a way of reading bills that works on all three.

2. Worked example

A finance analyst gets three bills in the same month and sees three unfamiliar names at the top of each:

Three names, one idea. Once the analyst maps each name to its plain meaning, the three bills can be compared line by line. The biggest line on all three is rented computers, which is very common.

3. Hands-on (5 min: no account needed)

1. Open the product list for each provider:
   - aws.amazon.com/products
   - cloud.google.com/products
   - azure.microsoft.com/products
2. On each page, find the product for "virtual machines".
3. Then find the product for "object storage" (a place to keep files).
4. Write the names in a small table: one row per provider, one column for
   virtual machines and one for object storage.

Compare your table with the one in this lesson. If a name differs, check whether the provider renamed the product: they do this from time to time, which is one reason bills can look confusing.

4. Knowledge check

Q1

Which three companies run the largest public clouds?

A. Apple, Netflix and Spotify
B. Oracle, IBM and Dell
C. Salesforce, Adobe and Zoom
D. Amazon, Google and Microsoft

Q2

EC2 on AWS, Compute Engine on Google Cloud and Virtual Machines on Azure are:

A. Three different kinds of database
B. Three names for the same idea: rented virtual machines
C. Three tools for paying your cloud bill
D. Three types of network cable inside a data centre

Q3

A company runs some systems on AWS and some on Azure. This is called:

A. Multi-cloud
B. On-prem
C. Serverless
D. A free tier

5. Apply

When you see an unfamiliar product name on a cloud bill, ask: “which of the four basic things is this?” It is almost always a rented computer, some storage, some data being moved, or a database. Look the name up once, write down the plain meaning, and you will recognise it next month.

Related lessons

• L2, On-premises vs cloud: owning vs renting
• L4, Where the computers live: regions and zones (next)
• I.4 L2: Accounts, projects and subscriptions

Glossary terms touched

Multi-account · Resource group