Conference Title: 5th International Conference on: "Next Generation Computing Technologies" NGCT 2019

"Study of Various Cloud Service Providers: A Comparative Analysis"

"Iqura Khan*, Bhupesh Dewangan**, Alpana Meena*, Megha Birthare*"
*
Rajiv Gandhi Prodyoki Vishvawidyala,Airport Road Gandhi Nagar,Bhopal 462033,India
**
Department of Informatics, School of Computer Science, niversity of Pertroleum and Energy Studies, Prem Nagar, Dehradun, 248007,India
Corresponding authorEmail: bhupesh.dewangan@gmail.com

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Article history: We are living in the age of technology where every field is blended with technology either
its healthcare or education or entertainment and immeasurably more. For these, IT
Received 00 December 00
organizations play a vital role. IT organizations are going up so high either they are small or
Received in revised form 00 January 00 big. Small IT organizations are running very smoothly and efficiently. This is becoming
Accepted 00 February 00 possible because of Cloud-Computing and its splendid services. Different cloud-service-
providers are available all over the globe. So, it is becoming necessary for a client to make the
right choice in accordance with their requirement. So, this paper differentiate cloud-service-
Keywords:
providers are compared and on the basis of their virtual machine types, their storage as a
Cloud Computing service, and their availability zones.
Comparison
Virtual Machine Types © 2019 NGCT and University of Petroleum and Energy Studies (UPES), Dehradun. Hosting by SSRN
Storage as a Service (ISN) All rights reserved.
Regions and Availability Peer review under responsibility of UPES Dehradun and NGCT 2019

1. Introduction

Today IT organizations are not only bigger organizations, there are several organizations that have the small physical infrastructure but they are running
very smoothly and efficiently. This is achievable because of the crucial role of cloud computing. But the question is how Cloud computing makes it possible?
It becomes possible through its various kinds of services like :
• Software-as-a-service. (SAAS)
• Platform-as-a-service. (PAAS)
• Infrastructure-as-a-service. (IAAS)
• Storage-as-Service.
• IT-as-a-service.
and others too. A person or an organization need not be dependent on hardware or its system configuration for working on a project. Because of cloud
computing, He/She is just required to rent a machine [1].

Before discussing further the introduction of the major services of cloud computing [17] [18] is mentioned.
• Software as a service(SAAS):
For IT organizations, distinct paid software is required to complete a project. But the project may get completed before the software's license expires.
So, if this happens then there will be no use of the software afterward and leads to inefficient cost management, Here SAAS comes into the role where
instead of purchasing software, an organization will rent software and pay as per their use.
• Platform as a service (PAAS)
For developing, running, and maintaining business applications there is a need to maintain the machine's hardware which again leads to burden to
small IT organizations. Here PAAS comes into the role where without worrying about the hardware maintenance of the machine, an organization can
develop and maintain its software on a readymade platform provided by cloud-service-providers.
• Infrastructure as a service (IAAS)
Suppose a developer working on a current project requires configuration beyond its machine then he/she needs to purchase the machine which fulfils
the requirement of the project which is again cost-inefficient. Then by using IAAS he/she just needs to rent a machine according to the requirement
of the project and it provides the "pay as u go" method or it is the method of computing that offers and manages instant computing infrastructure over
the internet.[15][16]

Because of these services of cloud computing, IT organizations are going up high. So, several cloud providers provide the services of cloud like Amazon-
Web-Services, Microsoft-Azure, Google-Cloud, IBM-Cloud, and many more.. These Cloud Service Providers (CSP's) provide different services. Figure 1,
provided below, classifies different CSPs according to the services provided by them.

This paper compare the number of cloud-service-providers or their services, what kind of service they are providing, what kind of service provider is suitable
for a particular organization that can be concluded from the paper also.

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3672950

 Figure. 1: Different Cloud Service Providers

2. Related Work

The author Mohammad [2] compared the Amazon-web-services, Google-Cloud, Microsoft-Azure as IoT-vendors, and concluded that AWS is better among
all and provides more hubs. The main focus of the authors were on the IoT applications.

Author Arif [3] compared Google cloud and iCloud services-providers. Starting with the introduction of cloud-storage and they compared the general history
of cloud services and then compared the two major cloud-service-providers. The authors also discussed the features of Google-cloud platforms and iCloud.
They concluded that both Google cloud and iCloud offers various features and the selection between the two depends on the need of the user.

P.Dutta [4] compared the three major service providers, Google Cloud Platform, Amazon, and AWS. The authors mentioned a few comparison tables
between the three based on their compute services, database services, storage services, networking services, management services, security, and key tools.
The authors also mention a brief comparison of their pricing models, their market trend, their key benefits, and their drawbacks.

The authors Aljamal, Ali and Fahed [6] compared AWS EC2, Azure, Google, Oracle on the basis of VM types, Batch processing, Migration tools, and
pricing policy. They concluded that no cloud-provider fit-all the user requirement. All has value. This document gives all the directions for HPC
applications/software’s.

Dewangan [7] compared serverless computing platforms that are AWS Lamda, Azure functions, and Google cloud functions. The authors provide detailed
discussion along with the conclusion of each. They compared the three on the basis of their architecture, resource utilization, and performance isolation
efficiency.

The authors Pratibha Pathak and Neelam Sahu [5] compared various clouds based on their services:-Focused on the comparison between Microsoft &
Google cloud services. They compare Microsoft & Google on the basis of their services(SAAS, PAAS & IAAS), their database services, their cost, the
operating system provided, and framework. Also, the authors described other service providers such as Amazon and its services like EC2, AWS (SAAS,
PAAS, & IAAS), HP Cloud, and the different clouds offered by it. Its services and types of cloud provided by IBM.

Dr. Ruchita [8] provides a comparative analysis between different cloud service providers. She discussed distinct features of Cloud service providers along
with popular cloud service providers. Among the famous CSPs are AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google, RedHat, IBM, etc. The discussed features of different
CSPs are cost, security, reliability, possession of network, etc. The author compared the clouds according to their major use or most suitable or lease suitable
user. She discussed the computing and encryption methods used by them. She also discussed storage mechanism, network mechanism, and basic mechanism
in tabular form by different CSP'S.

The authors, Nadeem & Farukh’s paper [9] is based on three CSPs that is, Ubuntu enterprise cloud, Cloud platform, and Promo virtual environment. They
also described performance parameters of it. The authors of the selected CSP’s also shared the results of the experimental set up. As per their result, Promo
virtual environment shows the best performance for response efficiency, CPU throughput, and application performance. Ubuntu shows the best performance
for I/O operations. No single CSP results in the best performance in memory and cache operations.

3. Purpose of Comparison of Cloud Service Providers

With the increasing popularity of CSPs, many IT organizations are providing services of cloud. So, it is becoming difficult for a user to select a CSP
according to their requirements. It is one of the characteristics of cloud computing that its services are metered and paid and that is what is becoming one of
the main challenges of cloud computing[10] . Also cost is one the important parameter in terms of performance of cloud for resource
management[11][12][13]. Cloud services are very rapidly adopted by small IT and business organizations because of their characteristics and affordable
Services [14] As discussed above several types of research have been conducted from the User’s perspective. Few of them compared their different
categories of services. But none of them focused on:
• Comparison between different types of VM provided by the three CSP’s
• Descriptive comparison between storage as a service Comparison of cloud regions and availability zones

4. Comparison between AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3672950

Virtual Machine Types are the instances of virtual machines that are virtualized. On the basis of different workloads, virtual machine types are organized
and curated.
• General Purpose Machine Type Family:
These types of machines are best suited for in terms of performance for different workloads. For small and moderate size databases, for moderate
traffic web servers and for testing and development general-purpose virtual machines give optimal results.
• Burstable Virtual Machines:
These types of machines save the cycles of CPU for later. They also have the capacity to match the fluctuating demands

4.1. Comparison between different types of VM provided by AWS, Azure and Google Cloud
• Memory-Optimized Machine Type:
These types of machines are optimal for memory-intensive workloads. It is convenient for relational database servers and in the analysis of
memory.

• Compute Optimized Machine Type:

These types of machines are optimal for compute-intensive workloads. These types of machines are well suited for moderate web servers and
application servers.

• Storage Optimized Machine Type:

These types of machines are optimal for storage-intensive workloads and provide high disk throughput

Table 4.1 Comparison between different types of VM provided by AWS, Azure and Google Cloud

Cloud Compute Services AWS Azure Google

Burstable VM T2 instances B series f1-micro/g1-small

General Purpose VM (latest) M5 series Dv4 series N2/E2 machine types

Memory-Optimized VM R6g Ev4/Edv4/ M2/M1 machine types

G series

Compute Optimized VM C6g instances F series C2 machine types

High-Performance Optimized VM P3/G4/F1 H series clusters

4.2 Comparison between storage as a service among AWS, Azure and Google Cloud

When it comes to enterprise storage then S3 (Simple Storage Service), EBS (Elastic Block Storage), and EFS (Elastic File system) are the admired services
provided by Amazon. But the other providers are not lagging in this type of service.

When it comes to enterprise storage then S3 (Simple Storage Service), EBS (Elastic Block Storage), and EFS (Elastic File system) are the admired services
provided by Amazon. But the other providers are not lagging in this type of service.
Microsoft Azure provides:
• For object storage, blob storage is provided.
• For virtual server disk, managed disks are provided.
• For bulk data transfer, data box is provided

Hence comparative table is provided of three CSP’s:

Table 4.2 Comparison between Storage as a Service provided by AWS, Azure and Google Cloud

Cloud Storage Services AWS Azure Google

Block Storage EBS Azure’s Disks SSD Disks

Object Storage S3 Azure’s Blob Google Cloud

File Storage EFS Azure File System FUSE

Archive Storage Glacier Azure Archive Coldline

Hybrid Storage Storage Gateway StorSimple Egnyte Sync

Bulk Data Transport AWS Snow DataBox Transfer App

4.3 Comparison of cloud regions and availability zones

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3672950

While choosing a cloud service provider number, locations of cloud regions, and availability zones are significant factors. The cloud storage rates are often
subject to regional fluctuations, and this is true for latency-tolerant services such as Archive Storage with rates varying by as much as 50 percent depending
on where archive data is stored.

In our cloud services comparison, each of the providers publishes a list of services available by area, and these are worthy of consideration.

Table 4.3 Comparison of cloud regions and availability zones of AWS, Azure and Google Cloud

Cloud Regions AWS Azure Google

The U.S.A. 4 8 4

Americas excluding the U.S.A. 2 3 2

Europe 4 8 5

Asia Pacific 8 13 5

5. Conclusion
It is out of the question to conclude that which service provider is best among all. This paper provides a comparative analysis among Amazon Web Services,
Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud from the user's perspective. All three provide an immense range of virtual machines and distinct storage as a service
and it is purely up to the client to choose one among them depending upon its requirement.[18]-[26]

This paper briefly compares the three service providers based on a few parameters. Further analysis and comparison can be done on the same parameters
like the different VM instances of different CSP's can be compared based on their cost, availability, etc.

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