Comparative Analysis: AWS and Azure for BallotOnline Cloud Migration

This report provides a detailed comparison of Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure as potential cloud computing platforms for BallotOnline's application deployment. It examines the feasibility of implementing BallotOnline's business requirements within the cloud architectures of both AWS and Azure, considering factors like availability, ease of use, application scaling, geographical distribution, and network security. The report also compares the ease of deployment, user interfaces, portals, and management consoles of both platforms, along with the Proof of Concept (POC) environment deployment times. A cost comparison of various services, including Linux and Windows OS pricing, data storage prices, and reserved instance discounts, is presented to aid in decision-making. The report concludes with recommendations for scaling applications and selecting the right platform, highlighting that while AWS offers better service quality, Azure provides faster deployment and better availability. The POC links are also included in the report.

Running head: CLOUD COMPUTING ON AWS AND AZURE
Cloud Computing On AWS and Azure
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s note:

1CLOUD COMPUTING ON AWS AND AZURE
Table of Contents
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................3
1. Comparison of Architecture Deployment Feasibility:.................................................................3
1.1 Cloud Architecture of AWS and Azure Environments:........................................................3
1.2 Efforts to Implement Ballotonline Business Requirements:.................................................4
1.3 Availability and Ease of Use:................................................................................................5
1.4 Application Migration and Monitoring:................................................................................5
2. Comparison of Ease of Deployment:...........................................................................................6
2.1 AWS and Azure Capabilities:................................................................................................6
2.2 Ease of Use of User Interfaces, Portals, and Management Consoles:...................................6
2.3 POC Environment Deployment Times:.................................................................................7
2.3.1 Amazon Web Services:...................................................................................................7
2.3.2 Microsoft Azure:.............................................................................................................8
3. Comparison of Costs:..................................................................................................................9
Conclusion:....................................................................................................................................13
Recommendations:........................................................................................................................13
Reference List:...............................................................................................................................14

2CLOUD COMPUTING ON AWS AND AZURE
Executive Summary
The report reflects the consideration and process of application deployment in Azure and AWS.
The comparison between the Azure and AWS has been provided in detailed information like
AWS is more secure than Azure but Azure is relatively faster than AWS. The Proof of Concept
has been provided along with the links to the one page PHP application. The cost comparison
between Azure and AWS services shows proper pricing of each services.

3CLOUD COMPUTING ON AWS AND AZURE
Introduction:
The cloud computing is collection of computing service deliveries like databases, servers,
networking, analytics, storage, software, intelligence and many more. The cloud computing
services are provided over the internet for implementing quick innovation, economics of sales
and flexible resources (Botta et al. 2016). More organizations are being attracted to the cloud
computing because of the low cost implementation, extreme speed and remote access. Amazon
Web Services and Azure, both are cloud computing platforms that provides various database and
application services.
The report provide description on BallotOnline’s application deployment in cloud
computing platform. The organization has chosen AWS or Azure cloud computing platform for
deploying the application.
1. Comparison of Architecture Deployment Feasibility:
1.1 Cloud Architecture of AWS and Azure Environments:
The Amazon Web services provide more than seventy services through its robust and
stable architecture. These services can be extremely useful for the current processes and future
development of BallotOnline. The architecture of AWS proper supports the BallotOnline need of
web application and storage. Current AWS architecture is used by the organizations like
CapitalOne, Netflix and more. The AWS Certified Solutions Architect which comes under the
category of professional certification can be a genuine solution for BallotOnline. The
deployment of the AWS is very easy and time efficient. Due to the simple and robust and simple

4CLOUD COMPUTING ON AWS AND AZURE
architecture of EC2, the deployment process becomes really easy. The EC2 will accept the
website files of BallotOnline in the form of zip extension and automatically deploy the files in
the respective folder.
The Microsoft owned cloud computing architecture, MS Azure is another possible
solution for deploying the BallotOnline website into cloud architecture. The architecture of
Azure is more flexible and allows better services for MS products. The architecture of the Azure
is more complicated than AWS platform because it allows deploying the website through various
ways. The best way to deploy the website of BallotOnline can be file sharing using FTP.
Another good platform for BallotOnline can be Google Cloud platform. The architecture
of Google cloud bit more complex than AWS. However, the website of BallotOnline cannot be
properly supported by the Google Cloud as the number of services it provides to the client is less
than AWS and Azure.
The Internet of Thing is one of the most important cloud trends at present. The future
development of strong and effective cloud security can be the most benefit things for
BallotOnline. The organization’s online presence can be a continuous challenge for managing
security (Wang et al. 2017). The new security developments can reduce the chance of
eliminating big shot cyber threats efficiently. First thing that should be embraced for cloud
migration is acquiring baseline performance standard. Another element that should be embraced
is compliance training.
1.2 Efforts to Implement Ballotonline Business Requirements:
The business requirement can be referred as the critical processes of an organization,
which should be executed for meeting the objectives of an organization, simultaneously

5CLOUD COMPUTING ON AWS AND AZURE
remaining independent of solution. For both the Azure and AWS, the business requirement
comparison has to be done differently (Yeoh and Popovic 2016). AWS solution is costly than the
Azure deployment. That is why if AWS is chosen then the level of services acquired from cloud
infrastructure should be less than that of Azure solution. Taken as an example, if the Azure
platform is chosen then Ballotonline can choose to convert all the business requirements into
automated system functions. However, for AWS, few requirements can remain as conventional
manual process.
1.3 Availability and Ease of Use:
The application scaling is better for Azure services. The availability of the data is almost
similar for both the Azure and AWS. The AWS is more preferred when the consideration is
NoSQL database. AWS also supports relational database platforms like MariaDb, MySQL,
MSSQL, Oracle and more (Ferreira, de Almeida and Bernardino 2017). However, if the choice is
implementing a relational database for application then Azure is the choice. Amazon Web
Services provides multilevel security where MS Azure provides mutual SSL authentication.
In terms of database as service, logging, auditing and application security, the Amazon
Web Services can be best solution for Ballotonline. The AWS supports almost all kind of
popular database platforms where Azure is specifically concentrated on providing SQL Server
Database services to the clients (Reddemma and Rafi 2018). Auditing has similar functionality
for both the Azure and AWS. The Amazon’s application security is better than Azure as they
consider Isolation of hypervisor, host OS, and guest virtual machines.

6CLOUD COMPUTING ON AWS AND AZURE
1.4 Application Migration and Monitoring:
Application migration to azure is associated with many challenges like provisioning
sufficient Local Bandwidth, planning of system downtime, handling mental standard shift,
fundamental database migration issues, handling present dependencies, application monitoring
and management, security challenges and many more (Da Cunha Rodrigues et al. 2016).
However, few of these issues are also linked with AWS migration but the scale and complexity
is low.
2. Comparison of Ease of Deployment:
2.1 AWS and Azure Capabilities:
Those new to the world of cloud computing wish to select that cloud platform which
provide more ease in helping get a head start with cloud computing. To familiarize with the
different cloud service providers is very important to decide what cloud is best to start a career
with (Garg, Versteeg and Buyya 2013).
Apart from the learning community, organizations also leaning towards drawing
comparison between AWS and Azure prior to making decisions on which cloud oriented
environment to select. Azure and AWS are both solid solutions performing nearly equally in
almost all use cases. It is only organizational requirements and business decisions that makes
companies prefer one over the other. In regards to storage, flexible compute, pricing and
networking the basic capabilities of both are quite similar. The common set of elements among
Azure and AWS regarding public clouds are self-service, autoscaling, pay-as-u-go pricing,
compliance, security, instant provisioning and identity access management features (Annette,
Banu and Chandran 2015).

7CLOUD COMPUTING ON AWS AND AZURE
2.2 Ease of Use of User Interfaces, Portals, and Management Consoles:
The software development kit of AWS for the third version of PHP enable the developers
in using AWS in the PHP code and build effective robust software and applications with the help
of the services Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon S3, Glacier among others (VODĂ 2014). The
process is not much different when it comes to performing similar tasks using Azure. Among the
key functionalities offered by cloud services is storage capability. The storage services of AWS
may be the longest running one but the same from Azure is also highly reliable. Both being very
strong in this context, provide all basic features like REST API access or even encryption of
server-side data (Baron and Kotecha 2013). The storage mechanism of Azure is Blob storage
while that of AWS is Simple Storage Service (S3). The SQL database service of Azure is
completely built on MS SQL Server.
2.3 POC Environment Deployment Times:
The deployment time of Azure was less than that of Amazon Web Services. Azure took
only two minutes for deploying the PHP application. However, in case of AWS it took five
minutes to deploy only a single page PHP application.
2.3.1 Amazon Web Services:
Link: http://ballotonlinepocwangn-env.mftxkacswg.us-east-2.elasticbeanstalk.com/

8CLOUD COMPUTING ON AWS AND AZURE
Figure 1: Application Environment Page
(Source: Created by Author)
Figure 2: Real PHP Application Page
(Source: Created by Author)
2.3.2 Microsoft Azure:
Link: https://ballotonlinepoc-nwang2.azurewebsites.net/

9CLOUD COMPUTING ON AWS AND AZURE
Figure 3: Successful File Transfer using FileZilla
(Source: Created by Author)
Figure 4: Application Environment Page
(Source: Created by Author)

10CLOUD COMPUTING ON AWS AND AZURE
Figure 5: Real PHP Application Page
(Source: Created by Author)
3. Comparison of Costs:
On demand Azure VS AWS Pricing
LINUX OS (AUGUST 2018)
TYPE vCPU MEM. AZURE AWS
General
Purpose
2 8 $0.0840 $0.0928
4 16 $0.1670 $0.1856
8 32 $0.3350 $0.3712
Computer
Optimized
2 4 $0.0850 $0.0850
4 8 $0.1690 $0.1700
8 16 $0.3380 $0.3400
Memory
Optimized
2 16 $0.1330 $0.1330
4 32 $0.2660 $0.2660
8 64 $0.5320 $0.5320

11CLOUD COMPUTING ON AWS AND AZURE
AZURE VS AWS PRICING
DATA STORAGE PRICES (AUGUST 2018)
FREQUENT ACCESS AZURE AWS
First 50 TB per month $0.0208/GB $0.0230/GB
Next 450 TB per month $0.0200/GB $0.0220/GB
Over 500 TB per month $0.0192/GB $0.0210/GB
Infrequent Access $0.0152/GB $0.0125/GB
One Zone Infrequent Access n/a $0.0100/GB
Archive Storage $0.0020/GB $0.0040/GB
On demand Azure VS AWS Pricing
WINDOWS OS (AUGUST 2018)
TYPE vCPU MEM. AZURE AWS
General
Purpose
2 8 $0.4990 $0.6680
4 16 $0.5970 $0.8560
8 32 $1.1940 $1.7120
Computer
Optimized
2 4 $0.5630 $0.6570
4 8 $0.7260 $0.8340
8 16 $1.4510 $1.6680

12CLOUD COMPUTING ON AWS AND AZURE
Memory
Optimized
2 16 $0.6250 $0.7160
4 32 $0.8500 $0.9520
8 64 $1.7000 $1.9040
AZURE VS AWS PRICING
RESERVED INSTANCE DISCOUNTS
TYPE GENERAL COMPUTE MEMORY
Azure - 3 year
term
58% 63% 62%
Azure - 1 year
term
36% 41% 41%
AWS - 3 year
term
62% 64% 62%
Partial upfront 60% 62% 60%
Monthly
Payments
57% 59% 57%
AWS - 1 year
term
42% 41% 41%
Partial upfront 41% 39% 40%

13CLOUD COMPUTING ON AWS AND AZURE
Monthly
Payments
38% 36% 37%
AWS –
Convertible 3
55% 57% 55%
Partial upfront 54% 56% 54%
Monthly
Payments
50% 52% 51%
AWS –
Convertible 1
33% 32% 32%
Partial upfront 32% 30% 31%
Monthly
Payments
29% 27% 27%
Conclusion:
From the above study, it can be clouded that AWS is a better cloud computing service
provider than Azure. However, Azure is also a very popular cloud platform that has its own
advantages. The Azure service is much faster and provides better availability. On the other hand,
ZWS is costly but provides better service quality.
Recommendations:
Scaling of Application: It is essential that developers has proper idea of what types of
scaling are available. The vertical scaling is a better choice when the application size is huge. In
horizontal scaling, requests and application loads are divided into smaller servers.

14CLOUD COMPUTING ON AWS AND AZURE
Selecting the Right Platform: This may not seem like an issue at the beginning but as
time will go, an inadequate platform will create various issues.

15CLOUD COMPUTING ON AWS AND AZURE
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