Table of Contents
Cloud computing provides a hassle free way of using computing resources such as computing power, memory, storage etc. Before cloud computing era management of on prem data centers with hosts of numerous physical boxes and big storage devices was huge overhead in terms of initial investments and later on their management which needed a fleet of skilled people. Cloud based storage has changed the way as it has eliminated the need to worry about running out of capacity, maintaining storage area networks (SANs), replacing failed devices, adding infrastructure to scale up and meet demand etc.
Today we look more in detail about how cloud storage services work in AWS, Azure, and Google cloud, and learn about types of storage supported by each provider and key differences.
AWS Storage Services
AWS provides seven types of storage services with choice for backups, archival and recovery of data loss. The most popular is object storage service also known as simple storage service or (S3) it can store data of any type such as web applications, mobile applications, backup, archive, and analytics. Elastic block storage (EBS) is like hard drives to store any kind of data.
Elastic file system (EFS) is a managed network file system that can be used by multiple EC2 instances. FSx for Lustre is used for compute intensive workloads. AWS Glacier is used for archival and long-term data storage. AWS FSx for Windows is meant for access to proprietary windows file systems on cloud. AWS storage gateway lets you store on prem applications, data on AWS cloud.
Azure Storage Services
Azure provides five types of storage services with choice for backups, archival, recovery and data loss. Blob storage is the most common type of cloud storage in Azure and is meant for workloads requiring high-capacity storage. Files is another way to store data which is a cloud-based file server used to manage customer data. Queue store is meant to store messages in a queue. Table storage is to store data in a structured way. Managed disks type storage which is based on performance requirement.
Google Storage Services
Google provides three types of storage services with choice for backups, archival, recovery and data loss. The most common type of cloud storage in Google is block storage which is used to store any data on cloud and like a virtual disk present in a local system. Network file storage helps to store files in an online cloud platform and storage is maintained over the network. Object storage stores data in groups known as buckets and buckets have capability to store multiple objects.
Comparison of Storage Services: AWS vs Azure vs GCP
Here’s a comparison of storage services offered by three major cloud providers: AWS (Amazon Web Services), Azure (Microsoft Azure), and GCP (Google Cloud Platform):
AWS
- Amazon S3: Object storage service designed for secure and scalable storage of any type of data. Offers durability, availability, and various storage classes.
- Amazon EBS: Block-level storage volumes for use with EC2 instances. Provides persistent storage with low-latency performance.
- Amazon EFS: Fully managed NFS file storage service that can be mounted to multiple EC2 instances simultaneously.
Azure
- Azure Blob Storage: Object storage for unstructured data. Provides scalability, high availability, and various tiers for optimized cost and performance
- Azure Disk Storage: Persistent and high-performance block storage for Azure VMs. Supports both SSD and HDD options.
- Azure Files: Fully managed file shares for cloud or hybrid deployments. Supports SMB protocol and can be accessed by multiple VMs simultaneously.
GCP
- Google Cloud Storage: Object storage service with strong consistency, scalability, and global edge-caching. Offers multi-regional, regional, and nearline storage.
- Google Persistent Disk: Block storage for VM instances with options for both SSD and HDD. Provides high IOPS and low-latency performance.
- Cloud Filestore: Managed file storage service based on the NFS protocol. Suitable for applications that require high-performance shared file systems.
Comparison Table: AWS vs Azure vs GCP (Storage Services)
The table below illustrates the key points of comparison between the storage services provided by the 3 Big Cloud service providers:
Download the Comparison Table: AWS vs Azure vs GCP