What is a cloud service provider?

If you are wondering how much each of the service providers is worth, we will tell you how you can find out the price of AWS, Google Cloud Platforms or Microsoft Azure. How to calculate the total or monthly budget according to what you need for your company when hiring a cloud service provider or another, how much it will cost, how to estimate it, etc.

The information that companies deposit is housed in the cloud, in different servers in the so-called “cloud” or “cloud”, instead of physical servers. Although there are many more, Microsoft Azure, Amazon Cloud Services, and Google are the top three current and most popular providers.

What is a cloud service provider?

Before choosing one or the other, comparing their advantages or prices, it is convenient to know what a cloud service provider is These companies offer a public or hybrid cloud by paying for their services. “The clouds” are at your disposal, but also a series of services and tools so that you can develop your work in said cloud. In exchange, of course, for a price that will vary depending on the space, the tools …

That is, imagine that you need to do any type of DIY work … You rent a space where they let you do this work to achieve your final goal but they also give you the tools (not just the room or premises) to get it. It would be applicable to the cloud and the company: they leave you that space in the cloud, a hosting, but also all the necessary tools to carry out the computational work you need, data center administration, etc.

Are you interested in a cloud service provider for an individual user? No. It is not a service similar to Dropbox or Google Drive where you will find space to upload content to the cloud (even if it is for your work or professionally) but it is a service for companies that are looking for different tools beyond a simple “Hosting” like the one you have for your website or blog. A cloud service with tools and services on demand adapting to users in categories that dream of being Big data, calculation, security, management, databases, IoT, artificial intelligence …

What to look for?

When choosing one or the other, we cannot simply take into account that there is one much better than another and that is the one we must hire. We have to take into account the needs of each company when selecting a provider of cloud services or others.

Specifications and tools

Obviously, we must make sure that the provider that we are going to choose complies with the tools or services that we need for our company or with the management of the systems that we have.

Trust

We also have to take into account how is your reputation or business “experience” (an unknown and new provider will not be the same as Microsoft, with the path that it takes) We must, therefore, analyze our preferences and needs before choosing one or another.

Security

It is essential to look at security, which can be one of the problems when deciding on one or the other. Most services today (especially the ones we gather here) have sufficient security measures to prevent long-term problems. It is interesting to look, for example, in a security infrastructure or in that there are procedures or backup copies that ensure that our data is protected.

Cost

How much is it going to cost us? That is what we will help you find out here by calculating an estimated budget based on what we need. Most services are billed according to hours or bytes, so it is not only about getting or hiring one service or another but also about consumption.

Other aspects to consider

Microsoft also explains, from its service provider website, other aspects that it would be interesting to look at when choosing one or the other:

  • Performance reports
  • Billing and accounting
  • Service level agreements
  • Financial strength
  • Audit
  • Organization and risk management
  • Event management
  • Change management
  • Standard interfaces
  • Etc

How much are they worth?

So you can calculate the price of each of them.

AWS

AWS is Amazon Web Services, Amazon’s cloud provider. As it defines itself on its website, it is “the most comprehensive and adopted cloud platform in the world.” It has a total of more than 200 comprehensive services and millions of clients around the world. There are all kinds of services and products depending on what your company needs from business applications, security, storage, interaction with clients, databases or robotics. From the AWS website you can find all the services that you can implementaccording to what you need. The variety of its services and tools is one of its strengths but another of the most positive is the experience that Amazon has in this field in which it has been working for decades (AWS began its journey in 2006, more than fifteen years) for which is one of the best options to bet on.

Price

The price of AWS or Amazon Web Services will depend on what you need. From the AWS website itself, it allows you to access a price calculator with which to make an estimate according to the services. You only pay for the services you need, individually, for as long as you need. That is why you can go tapping on each of the services to find out its price. For example, choose storage and any of the available optionssuch as S3 Storage or scalable cloud storage. Once inside this section you will see the prices according to the country you are in, according to the TB per month you consume. The same happens by tapping on any of the other options, such as “Interaction with customers” where you can choose, for example, Amazon Connect. Within this section you can see how much the use of voice costs per minute, the use of chat, etc.

You can also tap on “Price calculator” under “Create an estimate.” Here you can add the services you want and configure them to have the total or final price. You choose the details of each one and tap on “Add to my estimate” . Finally, you will receive a total of the first twelve months, the total initial payment or the monthly total that you must pay to use it.

Azure

Azure is a Microsoft cloud service or provider. A set of cloud services for companies, similar to Google Cloud and AWS.

One of its main advantages is the use of Windows companies and Microsoft software on a regular basis, which is why, by extension, they opt for Azure as a complement, having everything unified in the same company. In fact, most studies consider that one of Azure’s strengths is “relationships with company accounts.”

Price

To find Azure prices we can do it from its website and it allows you to make the payment monthly or with payment in advance. As in the previous case, each product has a different price but you have a price calculator on the Azure website where you can add the different tools to calculate or estimate a final price. You will see the different products and you can include them in the budget. You can choose tools for databases, storage, IoT, analysis, mobility, networks, mixed reality, blockchain, …

At the bottom of the page you can choose the region, the operating system or the level of the different tools or choose between several saving options according to pay per use, year of reservation in advance, three years of reservation, etc. Finally, you will see an estimated initial cost and estimated monthly cost that will appear in euros and to which you can add whether or not you want support, for example.

Google

Google has Google Cloud Platform, the third of the most important services currently on the market. It offers fewer tools than the previous ones but we will also find all kinds of products for different projects: API management, databases, data analytics, computing, development tools or multimedia content and video games.

Prices

Google gives you 300 free USB credit when you start using their service and, like the previous ones, it has a system in which you pay for what you use. Like the previous ones, Google has two different options to calculate prices or expenses: a detailed price list where you can see each of the services with its cost per minute, for example, or a price calculator where you can calculate the budget final.

As in the previous ones, the estimate is achieved by adding and filling in all the data according to what you need for your company. You select the category at the top of the page, fill in the exact characteristics you need and finally you will have an estimated and detailed budget.

Google has one of the lowest prices of the competition even though it has far fewer features than the previous two.

Market share, which is the most popular?

According to a study by Trading Platforms, the top three cloud service providers are the above with more than 60% of the market share. In first position would be Amazon Web Services with the highest percentage and achieving a total of 32% of the total. It is followed by Microsoft’s Azure with 20% and finally Google Cloud with 9% of the total. But there are many others that are available beyond this podium in the cloud such as IBM Cloud, Oracle Cloud, Tencent Cloud, Alibaba …

 

by Abdullah Sam
I’m a teacher, researcher and writer. I write about study subjects to improve the learning of college and university students. I write top Quality study notes Mostly, Tech, Games, Education, And Solutions/Tips and Tricks. I am a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence or virtue.

Leave a Comment