A cloud service is any service made available to users on demand via the Internet from a cloud computing provider’s servers as opposed to being provided from a company’s own on-premises servers. Cloud services are designed to provide easy, scalable access to applications, resources and services, and are fully managed by a cloud service providers.
In this article we’ll list 5 of the best cloud service providers that have distinguished themselves as the pioneers in cloud computing, either by being first to market, by offering the broadest and deepest set of cloud service.
Amazon Web Services
Amazon Web Services are Highly scalable, complete cloud platform services which are made for cost-effective cloud tools for business operations.
Features :
Computing
- Elastic Cloud Computing (EC2) : Amazon EC2 presents a virtual computing environment, Permitting clients to utilize web service interfaces to launch instances with a variety of operating systems, load them with custom application environment, manage network access permissions, and run images using as many or as few systems as needed.
- Elastic Beanstalk : AWS Elastic Beanstalk is a service for deploying and scaling web applications and services developed with Java, .NET, PHP, Node.js, Python, Ruby, Go, and Docker on servers such as Apache, Nginx, Passenger, and IIS. Users can simply upload code and Elastic Beanstalk automatically handles the details of capacity provisioning, load balancing, scaling, and application health monitoring.
Storage
- Amazon Simple Storage Service ( Amazon S3) : Amazon S3 is a storage for the Internet. You can use Amazon S3 to store and retrieve any amount of data at any time, from anywhere on the web. You can accomplish these tasks using the simple and intuitive web interface of the AWS Management Console.
- Amazon Glacier : Amazon Glacier is an extremely low-cost storage service that provides durable storage with security features for data archiving and backup. With Amazon Glacier, customers can store their data cost effectively for months, years, or even decades. Amazon Glacier enables customers to offload the administrative burdens of operating and scaling storage to AWS, so they don’t have to worry about capacity planning, hardware provisioning, data replication, hardware failure detection and recovery, or time-consuming hardware migrations.
Networking
- Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) : Amazon VPC enables you to launch AWS resources into a virtual network that you’ve defined. This virtual network closely resembles a traditional network that you’d operate in your own data center, with the benefits of using the scalable infrastructure of AWS.
- AWS Direct Connect : AWS Direct Connect offers users a way to create dedicated network connection from premises to AWS. Using AWS Direct Connect, users can establish private connectivity between AWS and datacenter, office, or colocation environment, which in some cases may reduce network costs, increase bandwidth throughput, and provide a more consistent network experience than Internet-based connections.
Management
- Amazon CloudWatch : Amazon CloudWatch is a monitoring service for AWS cloud resources and the applications that run on AWS. Users can use Amazon CloudWatch to collect and track metrics, collect and monitor log files, set alarms, and automatically react to changes in your AWS resources. Amazon CloudWatch can monitor AWS resources such as Amazon EC2 instances, Amazon DynamoDB tables, and Amazon RDS DB instances, as well as custom metrics generated by applications and services, and any log files applications generate.
- AWS CloudFormation : AWS CloudFormation simplifies provisioning and management on AWS. You can create templates for the service or application architectures you want and have AWS CloudFormation use those templates for quick and reliable provisioning of the services or applications (called “stacks”). You can also easily update or replicate the stacks as needed.
Microsoft Azure
Microsoft Azure is a IaaS and PaaS computing for development, deployment, and management which is made for enterprise clients familiar with Microsoft products, robust development and deployment.
Features :
Computing
- Virtual Machines : Azure Virtual Machines lets users deploy a wide range of computing solutions. Users can deploy a virtual machine nearly instantly, and pay by the minute. With support for Microsoft Windows, Linux, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, IBM, SAP, and Azure BizTalk Services, users can deploy any workload and any language on nearly any operating system.
- Cloud Services : Develop, package, and deploy powerful applications and services to the cloud with Azure Cloud Services and the click of a button. It allows users to Scale from 1 to 1000 in minutes. Once your application is deployed azure automatically handles provisioning, load-balancing and monitoring. Your application is backed by an industry-leading 99.95% monthly SLA.
Storage
- Azure Storage : Azure Storage provides users with the ability to scalable,durable, and highly available storage for their data. Azure storage provides Blob storage, Table storage, Queue storage, and File storage Services. Blob Storage stores unstructured object data. Table Storage stores structured datasets. Queue Storage provides reliable messaging for workflow processing and for communication between components of cloud services. File Storage offers shared storage for legacy applications using the standard SMB protocol.
- Azure Backup : Azure Backup can protect your critical applications, including SharePoint, Exchange and SQL Server; files and folders; Windows servers and clients; and Azure infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) virtual machines. Azure Backup provides a compelling alternative to tape with significant cost savings, shorter recovery times and up to 99 years of retention. The backup data is stored in geo-replicated storage which maintains 6 copies of your data across two Azure datacenters.
Networking
- Virtual Network : Azure Virtual Network provides an isolated and secure environment to run virtual machines and applications. You can fully control the IP address blocks, DNS settings, security policies, and route tables within this network. Additionally, you can connect the virtual network to your on-premises network using one of the connectivity options available in Azure.
- ExpressRoute : Azure ExpressRoute lets you create private connections between Azure datacenters and infrastructure on your premises or in a colocation environment. ExpressRoute connections don’t go over the public Internet. ExpressRoute offer more reliability, faster speeds and lower latencies and higher security than typical Internet connections.
Management
- Operational Insights : Operational Insights, part of Microsoft Operations Management Suite, is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution tailored for IT operations teams. Microsoft Operations Management Suite (OMS) is Microsoft’s cloud-based IT management solution that helps you manage and protect your on-premises and cloud infrastructure. Operational Insights uses Azure to collect, store, and analyze log data from any datacenter or cloud, and turn it into real-time operational intelligence.
- Scheduler : Azure Scheduler lets you create jobs in the cloud that reliably invoke services inside and outside of Azure – such as calling HTTP/S endpoints or posting messages to Azure Storage queues, Azure Service Bus queues, or Azure Service Bus topics. You can choose to run jobs right away, on a recurring schedule, or at some point in the future.
Google Cloud Platform
Google Cloud Platform is hosted by Google which is made for developers seeking a streamlined cloud ecosystem for development and deployment.
Features :
Computing
- Compute Engine : Google Compute Engine lets you create and run virtual machines on Google infrastructure. Compute Engine offers scale, performance, and value that allows you to easily launch large compute clusters on Google’s infrastructure. There are no upfront investments and you can run thousands of virtual CPUs on a system that has been designed to be fast, and to offer strong consistency of performance.
- APP Engine : Google App Engine provides users to build and deploy an application that runs reliably under heavy load and with large amounts of data. App Engine will scale applications automatically in response to the amount of traffic it receives. Users upload their code and Google will manage the app’s availability. There are no servers to provision or maintain.
Storage
- Cloud Storage : Google Cloud Storage allows world-wide storage and retrieval of any amount of data at any time. You can use Google Cloud Storage for a range of scenarios including serving website content, storing data for archival and disaster recovery, or distributing large data objects to users via direct download.
- Cloud Datastore : Cloud Datastore is a highly-scalable NoSQL database for your applications. Cloud Datastore automatically handles sharding and replication, providing you with a highly available and durable database that scales automatically to handle your applications’ load. Cloud Datastore provides a myriad of capabilities such as ACID transactions, SQL-like queries, indexes and much more.
Networking
- Load Balancing : Google Container Engine offers integrated support for network load balancing with the type: LoadBalancer field in your service configuration file. Network load balancing can spread TCP and UDP based traffic over a pool of instances within a Compute Engine region. If you require more advanced load balancing features, such as HTTPS balancing, content-based load balancing, or cross-region load balancing, you can integrate your Container Engine service with Compute Engine’s HTTP/HTTPS Load Balancing. HTTP/HTTPS load balancing can balance HTTP and HTTPS traffic across multiple Compute Engine instances, allowing users to use a cluster of virtual machines to serve Compute Engine traffic.
- Cloud DNS : Google Cloud DNS is a scalable, reliable and authoritative Domain Name System (DNS) service running on the same infrastructure as Google. It has low latency, high availability and is a cost-effective way to make your applications and services available to your users.
Management
- Cloud Deployment Manager : Google Cloud Deployment Manager allows you to specify all the resources needed for your application in a declarative format using yaml. You can also use Python or Jinja2 templates to parameterize the configuration and allow reuse of common deployment paradigms such as a load balanced, auto-scaled instance group.
- Cloud Monitoring : Users can gain insight into the performance and availability of cloud-powered applications with Cloud Monitoring. Additionally, it can be used to review performance metrics and logs for Google Cloud Platform services and VMs, and create custom dashboards.
IBM Cloud
IBM Cloud is the Multifaceted cloud offering for business operations which is made for business users seeking bare metal servers, infrastructure, and analytics tools.
Features :
Computing
- Cloud Servers : IBM’s SoftLayer provides bare metal servers and flexible virtual servers in a single platform. With virtual cloud servers It’s all on demand and billed on monthly or hourly terms. No long-term commitments. Complete infrastructure control.
- IBM Bluemix : IBM Bluemix is IBM’s cloud Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS). Bluemix is based on Cloud Foundry open technology and runs on IBM’s SoftLayer infrastructure. It supports several programming languages and services as well as integrated DevOps to build, run, deploy and manage applications on the cloud.
Storage
- Object Storage : Object Storage is a redundant and highly scalable cloud storage service that allows users to easily store, search, and retrieve data across the Internet, with optional CDN connectivity, or across SoftLayer’s global private network. IBM Bluemix now offers two Object Storage solutions. One is Cloud Object Storage COS (Swift) which is the original Object Storage that runs on Openstack swift. Another one is Cloud Object Storage COS (S3) which is IBM Bluemix Object storage based upon IBM Cleversafe technology.
- Backup : SoftLayer provides turnkey EVault and R1Soft automatic backup solutions, as well as the ability to create your own using our virtual or bare metal server running your own backup application. EVault Backup is an enterprise-level backup storage and disaster recovery solution hosted on an internal iSCSI mount, available for local access at each data center. Backups can be set to follow hourly, daily, weekly, or custom schedules.
Networking
- Load Balancing : Load Balancing is a way to distribute processing and communications evenly across multiple servers within a data center so that a single device does not carry an entire load. SoftLayer Load Balancing enables customers to employ a variety of balancing methods to distribute traffic, including persistent and non-persistent options, that can be changed, activated and deactivated at any time.
- Network Appliances : Instead of provisioning multiple hardware and software solutions to serve as routers, firewalls, and load balancers, users can implement software-defined networking solutions to create all-in-one network appliances. Appliances are then deployed on SoftLayer bare metal servers with network settings set and tweaked. Infrastructure’s traffic management is updated in real time.
Management
- Controls : A single set of controls for all SoftLayer infrastructure that can be accessed via API, Web portal, or mobile application make server management and account administration quick and easy.
- Server Monitoring & Reporting : Every SoftLayer server comes with monitoring resources at no additional cost, so you can access reports to evaluate your cloud infrastructure performance at any time.
Rackspace
Rackspace is the dedicated server and infrastructure service which is made for powerful managed hosting with various managed services.
Features :
Computing
- Rackspace Cloud Servers : Users can instantly provision bare-metal servers using the OpenStack API or the control panel to bring more consistency and predictability to application performance. It offers hosts for virtual machine flavor classes, as well as all the bare-metal servers, receive redundant, dual, bonded 10Gbps network connections to fuel high-bandwidth applications. All servers also have a blazing 10Gbps connection to Cloud Block Storage.
- Rackspace OnMetal Cloud Servers : OnMetal servers are single-tenant, bare metal servers provisioned via the same OpenStack API as our cloud. They can be spun up or down as quickly as VMs to offer the agility of multi-tenant environments with the performance of single-tenant hardware. OnMetal servers are engineered as 100 percent solid-state with external cooling. This provides increased mean time between failures (MTBF).
Storage
- Cloud Files : Cloud Files provides online object storage for files and media, delivering them globally at blazing speeds over a worldwide content delivery network (CDN). You can store as many files as you want even very large files.
- Cloud Backup : Cloud Backup safeguards your business by helping to protect the important files your website or application needs. Quickly get back to normal operations by rapidly restoring files after a system failure or file loss. This platform offers users the ability to create, schedule, and manage file-level backups through the Rackspace Control Panel or API. It is integrated with Cloud Servers on the high-capacity network.
Networking
- RackConnect Global : RackConnect Global provides highly available, secure, private network connectivity between Rackspace and your other data centers and the cloud provider of your choice, such as Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services for the ultimate in multi-cloud flexibility, backed 24×7.
- RackConnect Hybrid : RackConnect is designed to enhance infrastructure with rapidly elastic cloud compute and storage resources, enabling users to flex capacity quickly, reacting to unexpected spikes in demand or to seasonal business trends. RackConnect offers a number of security features on the cloud side that were previously available only in dedicated environments.
Management
- Cloud Monitoring : Rackspace Monitoring is an enterprise-grade solution that helps keep your applications up and running fast all of the time. Remote monitoring tests connectivity from regional zones deployed throughout global data centers, and agent-based monitoring gathers information from inside each resource so you always receive the richest information possible.
