Amazon Web Services vs. Google Cloud: Cloud Storage Comparison

• Amazon Web Services & Google Cloud are both popular cloud storage vendors. However, Amazon is leading in market share; according to a 2020 report produced by the Synergy Research Group, Amazon currently holds 33% of the worldwide cloud market.

• Amazon’s pricing is known to be ambiguous. Gartner has called the pricing model complex while Google, instead, often offers discounts to attract customers. According to Gartner, Google is known to offer flexible pricing.

Read on for comparisons on features, pricing, integrations, and time to implement.

Google and Amazon (as well as Microsoft and other vendors) are currently battling it out for dominance over the cloud market. We will be taking a deeper dive into both platforms and comparing them in order to help you make a clear decision before architecting your system on either option.

Table of Contents:

1. AWS and Google Cloud: Overview

2. Pricing: Google Cloud vs. Amazon

3. Understanding Pricing

4. Features

5. Implementation

6. Choosing the right one for your business

AWS and Google Cloud: Overview

Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud are both leading cloud service providers. Instead of organizations purchasing hardware and managing it themselves, users can instead upload their data into the cloud. When choosing a cloud storage provider there are many options to consider – there are often several storage options and in some instances, pricing can get complex.

Both AWS or Google has its own advantages and disadvantages. However, no one vendor is the clear choice. Instead, it depends on what the cloud is being used for. And although AWS was an early leader and remains the leader in the market, Google is known for marking market-based price reductions in order to reduce the gap.

AWS

Amazon Web Services is a subsidiary of Amazon and is known for its unmatched offerings of tools and capabilities. The platform is seen as the platform of choice for developers working on projects that require a high degree of computing power, as Amazon’s Simple Storage Service (S3) can manage accounts regardless of their size or performance needs.

Amazon also offers Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS), which delivers consistent performance built to scale. Amazon Glacier allows an organization to retrieve only the subset of data one may need from within an archive.

However, the platform is focused on the public cloud, rather than hybrid or private, which can cause issues for organizations looking to interoperate their data.

Google Cloud

The Google Compute Engine allows organizations to launch virtual machines at will. They offer a single API which makes it easy to integrate the platform into development. Some large companies using Google Cloud at the moment are Apple, Dominoes, Best Buy, Sony Music, and many more. Their platform leverages industry leading tools in deep learning and data analytics, which have helped the underdog make headway into the cloud market.

Google also offers Google Filestore, which is used for storing applications that require a shared file system for data. Google Persistent Disk offers block storage for Virtual Machine instances.

Pricing Table Comparison of AWS vs Google Cloud

Data Storage Pricing

Pricing is one of the largest points of differentiation between Google Cloud and AWS. Always keep in mind that the specific price of these solutions may change. AWS is known for pricing their compute time by the minute, by the second, with a 1 minute minimum. Google Compute Engine pricing is listed by the hour for each instance and they charge by the minute with a 10 minute minimum. So, even if you only use 1 minute, you will receive a charge for $10.

Google and AWS are not directly comparable. AWS may seem to be far more expensive but Google Cloud per operation performed on objects in storage so an organization must consider data access.

Google also has instant access across its tiers while Amazon’s storage options can be configured to range from a minute to several hours. Both platforms offer block storage — Google refers to it as persistent disks while Amazon refers to theirs as Elastic Block Storage (EBS). While Google will provide availability across availability zones, AWS only provides support inside an availability zone. In order to understand the difference between these features, check out the section below.

Features for Data Storage

Amazon continues to differentiate itself due to the variety of services it can provide. Amazon currently covers over 175 services which span IoT, security, mobile, networking, as well as several other topics.

As a first mover in the space, AWS is positioned as a leader and continues to be the largest player and the most successful cloud provider on the market. AWS has almost every server type an organization could need and offers extensions into hybrid cloud functionality through VMWare and on-premises hardware through Outpost.

Google has recently repackaged their Kubernates engine as Anthos, which can make an organization’s application compatible across public or private environments. For new startups making this decision, Google is an attractive option as engineers don’t need to consider legacy code and Google provides a wealth of analytics. In the past few years, Google has made an effort to support quick development and has open source technologies available to ensure a fast time-to-market.

Implementation

Amazon has three separate services that are instrumental to continuous cloud delivery. The first is AWS CodeBuild, which offers to scale and grow based on the demands of an organization. For example, CodeBuild can assist with the continuous deployment of two separate builds, which provides essential testing comparison information.

AWS CodePipeline will instead test and deploy the code any time a change is necessary. This allows for rapid deployment and delivery of updates. AWS CodeDeploy provides the final working package to any instance, which facilitates release new features.

Google, as well, has services which help organizations build their apps. Aside from the Google Compute Engine, which launches VMs quickly, there is also the GCP Deployment Manager. This lets an organization specifically notify Google as to all the tools and resources necessary to get up and running.

A DevOps team can explicitly tell the Deployment Manager as to what the deployment should resemble and ensure the deployment process is scalable and repeatable. The GCP Cloud Console, meanwhile, gives an organization full view into every aspect and detail so a DevOps team can easily control the operation.

Choosing the Best Cloud Storage for your Business

Both Amazon and Google provide teams with highly sophisticated and intuitive platforms to facilitate cloud storage and application development. While it can be tough deciding which to commit to, each organization is facing their own challenges that must be considered before choosing a platform to build upon.

While AWS is leading in market share and popularity, Google is making headway in catching up to it, especially as the search giant cuts prices in a move to be more competitive with AWS.