| In one of our earlier posts we did a comparison | | | | allows a local deployment of windows azure within a |
| between Google App Engine and EC2 based on | | | | company premise on local servers to setup a local |
| some of the key parameters driving a Cloud | | | | virtual cloud. Azure provides an integrated approach of |
| Computing platform. In this post we will focus on a | | | | deployment directly from Visual Studio which would |
| comparison between Amazon EC2 and Microsoft | | | | directly allow you to deploy the solution on Azure. |
| Azure. | | | | - An integrated deployment options with Developer |
| Language/Platforms Supported | | | | tools significantly reduces the deployment complexity |
| - Amazon EC2 provides support for setting virtualized | | | | for Azure based apps. In addition a lot of the |
| instances of operating systems/applications and | | | | configuration aspects of a VM needed to be setup on |
| databases which essentially implies that in can support | | | | Amazon is not required on Azure. |
| pretty much all the standard environments like | | | | Performance and Scalability |
| Windows(Server 2000/2008), Linux flavors, | | | | - Amazon EC2 is a mature platform and has been |
| OpenSolaris, multiple Databases (DB2, Oracle, SQL | | | | proven to provide significant scalability options for cloud |
| Server) and various Web and application servers. | | | | applications. Apart from auto scaling options, custom |
| - Microsoft Azure on the other hand is purely a | | | | configuration and options allows you to pretty much |
| Windows environment with Windows Server 2008 the | | | | scale to any level. Also since EC2 deploys applications |
| primary environment and all languages/applications that | | | | as Virtual Instances it provides an opportunity to |
| are available on Windows Server is supported. While | | | | completely control and scale your instance and |
| they have released SDKs to support interop for other | | | | application. |
| languages like Java, PHP and Ruby to run on Azure, i | | | | - Azure while not a traditional VM, provides a VM like |
| would still consider it primarily a first choice .NET | | | | environment for hosting applications. It provides auto |
| environment. | | | | scaling options and also ability to choose various |
| - Amazon clearly is a much more flexible environment | | | | configurations for the VMs based on the resource |
| and can support a wide variety of applications. On the | | | | needs. SQL Azure functions as a Cloud Database in a |
| other if you have a Microsoft based platform | | | | shared environment as against Amazon RDS can be |
| application Azure will be a strong consideration. | | | | controlled per instance. |
| Deployment/Setup Complexity | | | | - EC2 clearly provides a more configurable |
| - Setup for Amazon EC2 involves setting up an image | | | | environment to scale up and scale out your |
| and configuring a virtual instance of the instance to | | | | applications with much more granular control over your |
| include the Operating System/Application. The setup | | | | applications and environment. |
| and deployment activities is similar in nature to setup a | | | | Stay posted for a blog post coming up on a 3 way |
| virtualized environment. Amazon provides command | | | | comparison/cheatsheet on how to make a choice |
| line tools which would help support this. | | | | between the 3 major players in PaaS Amazon EC2, |
| - Windows Azure offers to variations in terms of | | | | App Engine, Azure. |
| Deployment. A hosted model similar to Amazon EC2 | | | | Check our Blog Technology Trendz for more details. |
| and an alternate Azure Platform Appliance which | | | | |