Public Cloud Platforms (under review) comparison & reviews

Summary
Rank
4th 5th 2nd
Score
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Analysis expand by by Marius Sandbu
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General expand
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  • Fully Supported
  • Limitation
  • Not Supported
  • Information Only
Pros
  • + Good range of hybrid capabilities (including VMware partnership)
  • + Baremetal Server options with cloud characteristics (hourly consumption)
  • + Competitive priced fully featured IAAS offerings
  • + Good datacentre coverage across Asia Pacific
  • + Broad range of services
  • + Good hybrid capabilities for Microsoft based environments
Cons
  • - High performance networking, but limited capabilities
  • - Limited European and US datacentre footprint
  • - Availability zone rollout still largely in preview.
  Content  
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Content Creator
WhatMatrix
Ephraim Baron
Marius Sandbu
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Overview
Bluemix delivers virtual machines running in IBM Cloud data centers backed by a global private fiber network.
Alibaba Cloud Elastic Compute Service (ECS) provides fast memory and the latest Intel CPUs to help you achieve faster results with low latency to power your cloud applications.
Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing service delivered through a global network of Microsoft-managed data centers.
Management expand
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  Interfaces  
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UI / API / CL / SDK
Single UI : Various APIs / CLIs native to services. Differences between IAAS & PaaS environment
UI, API, CLI, SDK
Webbased UI, Powershell, API Available, CLI Available for Windows/Mac/Linux, SDK Available for different platforms
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Common API service keys
Multiple API service keys
Each Alibaba Cloud user can create multiple access key/secret key pairs
Azure Users can create their own API Access keys; these keys can be shared
  Monitoring  
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General Service monitoring
Available, but inconsistent IAAS & PAAS service monitoring
Cloud Monitor
Every Azure Compute Instances can have basic service monitoring such as CPU, Memory and Disk utilization
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VM Service monitoring
Guest OS agent based (Nimsoft)
The OSS monitoring service details metric data, including basic system operation statuses, performance, and metering. It also provides a custom alarm service to track requests, analyze usage, collect statistics on business trends, and promptly discover and diagnose system problems.
Every Azure instance sends basic metrics to Azure Monitor. More metrics and information can be gathered using OMS
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Actions / Event logging
Limited capability (agent based)
The alarm rule page is where you can view, modify, activate, deactivate, and delete alarm rules related to OSS monitoring alarms.
Log Analytics with OMS or using Azure Monitor
  Admin  
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Identity & Access Management
Centralised IAM
Alibaba Cloud Resource Access Management (RAM) is an identity and access control service which enables you to centrally manage your users (including employees, systems or applications) and securely control their access to your resources through permission levels.
Azure Active Directory
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Multi factor authentication support
Only for IAAS
Users can create, bind, unbind, and delete virtual multi-factor authentication devices.
MFA support for Admins
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Granular Access Control
Configurable access control to IAAS
Supports role-based access control
Resource Groups and RBAC
  Control  
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VM Billing per min / hr
Hourly / Monthly / Subscription
On-demand pricing by the hour and by the month
Pay-as-you-go, CSP, EA, Per minute billing
Compute VM expand
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  VM  
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VM micro (below 1 vCPU)
1vCPU minimum
ecs.n1.tiny
A-series
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VM Small (up to 8 vCPU)
Available : Configurable mem up to 64GB
ecs.c1.large and ecs.n1.xlarge series
D-series
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VM Medium (up to 16 vCPU)
Available : Configurable mem up to 128GB
ecs.c2.large and ecs.n1.3xlarge
L-series
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VM Large (up to 32 vCPU)
Available : Configurable mem up to 242GB
ecs.n1.7xlarge and ecs.sn1.7xlarge
L-series
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VM XLarge (up to 64 vCPU 128GB RAM)
Max 56 core with mem up to 242GB
largest instance is 56 vCPU
EV3-series
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VM XXLarge (up to 128 vCPU 2TB RAM)
Not available as VM (Baremetal option : per Month)
No
M-series
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GPU VM Large (up to 32 vCPU)
Not available as VM (Baremetal option : per Hr / Month)
ecs.gn5-c28g1.14xlarge
N-series
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GPU VM XLarge (up to 64 vCPU 128GB RAM)
Not available as VM (Baremetal option : per Hr / Month)
largest instance is 56 vCPU
No
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GPU VM XXLarge (up to 128 vCPU 2TB RAM)
No generally available Baremetal option
No
No
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GPU types
Nvidia Tesla P100, M60, K80, Grid K2 (monthly & hourly options)
Nvidia Tesla P100 GPU
NVIDIA K80, M60, P100
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Custom VM size
Standard config types for public VMs. Private host VMs can be configured
No
No
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Defined disk IOPS
Not available as local disc (available with SAN)
Users can choose SSD storage, but they cannot specify IOPS
Yes to a certain degree
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SR-IOV support
Not supported
No native SR-IOV support
Yes, Accelerated Network
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Network speeds
1 x public / 1 x private : Can add 1 private but no ability to add additional
Based on selected network bandwidth peak between
Low, Moderate, High, RDMA
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Add virtual NIC
No ability to add vNIC
No. Can add multi-queue for NICs
Yes
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Attached / detach block storage
Limited ability with portable storage
Yes, including Shared Block Storage
Yes
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Virtual dedicated cloud
Virtual network created at L2 VLAN level.
Alibaba Cloud Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) is an isolated cloud network built for private usage.
Yes Virtual Network
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IP reassignment
Can assign portable public / private IPs
Only Elastic Ips
Yes
  Image  
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Manual snapshots image
Supported
Can create system image
Yes
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Scheduled snapshot image
Not available as native service (could script through API)
Scheduled tasks are supported, but not for VM image
Not available as native service
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API / CLI Snapshot image
Supported
Scheduled tasks are supported, but not for VM image
Yes
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Make image public / marketplace
Supported
Only through Marketplace
Yes Azure Marketplace
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VM import
ISO & VHD imports supported
Supports RAW and VHD format
Yes CLI or UI
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VM export
VHD image export
Must request for export function to be whitelisted
Yes
  O/S  
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Windows
Windows Server 2012, 2012R2, 2016 Standard edition
Windows Server 2008 and 2012, Standard, Data Center, and Enteprise, English and Chinese
Microsoft Azure currently supports a variety of operating systems including: Ubuntu, Windows Server, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, Fedora, Debian, CentOS, Gentoo Linux, Oracle Linux, and FreeBSD. 
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Linux
Redhat, Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS, Cloudlinux, CoreOS
CentOS, Ubuntu, Debian, FreeBSD, SUSE, and Alibaba Linux as well as CoreOS
Microsoft Azure currently supports a variety of operating systems including: Ubuntu, Windows Server, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, Fedora, Debian, CentOS, Gentoo Linux, Oracle Linux, and FreeBSD. 
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Bring your own OS
Supported (at own risk)
No
Yes, you can bring your own Microsoft license using HUB
  Control  
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Resize existing VM
Resize vCPU, memory, network speed
No
Yes
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VM Live Migration
Recovery processes not clearly defined. SLA for recovery defined (in hrs)
No
On host failure the vm will be auto migrated to a new host (guest monitor/restart also available)
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metadata
Supported
Limited to pre-defined metadata types
Yes
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Parking
Powering off VM does not stop billing
No
Yes
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Provision in less than 5 mins
Variable - often more than 5 mins
Yes
Yes
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Provision consistent spec
Although host performance is up to date, there is limited view of host specification
Instance generation types include specific CPU information
Yes
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Reserved instances
Not available
Monthly subscription option only
Yes
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Spot instances
Not available
No
Yes, Azure Low Priority VMs
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Dedicated host (Single tenant)
Dedicated host & dedicated Instances (pay per VM) available
No
No
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VM to host affinity (network optimised)
Available on didicated hosts
Only for containers
Yes
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VM to host anti-affinity
Available on didicated hosts
No
Yes, Availability Groups
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Autoscaling VMs (within AZ)
Supported (within DC)
Yes
Yes
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Autoscaling across AZs/Regions
Not available
Using Server Load Balancing
No
  Block storage  
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Local HDD
Available (25GB & 100GB primary drive)
Basic Cloud Disk
Yes, Standard Managed Disk or Standard Storage
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SSD HDD
Yes ability to define local storage (as SSD) 
SSD Cloud Disk
Yes, Premium Storage
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SAN HDD
Available (25GB & 100GB primary drive)
SSD Cloud Server
No
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Encryption at rest
Not available on VM drives (only on additional attached storage)
For object storage
Yes

Matrix Score

  •  
  •  
  • IBM
  • Alibaba
  • Microsoft
  •  
  • 4 th
  • 5 th
  • 2 nd
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