Amazon EC2 vs Google Compute Engine: Which IaaS Platform is Better
Are you considering moving your business to the cloud? If so, you've probably heard of the two biggest contenders in the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) market: Amazon EC2 and Google Compute Engine (GCE). Both are giants in the industry, but which one is the best choice for your business?
In this post, we'll explore the features, performance, pricing, and other factors that set Amazon EC2 and Google Compute Engine apart from each other.
Features
Both Amazon EC2 and Google Compute Engine offer a wide range of features and configurations to satisfy diverse business needs. Some of the most notable features include:
Amazon EC2
- AMI: Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) are the pre-configured templates that enable you to launch new instances with the operating system, server applications, and other resources needed for your specific project.
- Elastic Load Balancers: enables the distribution of incoming traffic across multiple target resources such as EC2 instances, containers, and IP addresses.
- Elastic Block Store: can provide block-level storage volumes for Amazon EC2 instances. This can also provide the storage capacity of Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances.
Google Compute Engine
- Snapshots: allows you to backup your data and keep it safe by creating incremental snapshots for block storage resources.
- Custom Machine Types: this feature lets you create a machine type that is specific to your workload's specific number of cores and memory required.
- Live Migrations: This feature lets you move virtual machines (VMs) from one physical host to another without any downtime.
Verdict
When it comes to features, it's a tie. Amazon EC2 has an edge with its Elastic Load Balancer feature, while GCE stands out for its Live Migrations ability.
Performance
One of the most critical factors in choosing an IaaS platform is performance. Before making a decision, it's essential to evaluate the following metrics:
Amazon EC2
- Instance Types: Amazon EC2 offers a wide range of instance types optimized for different use cases, such as compute-intensive, memory-intensive, or storage-optimized instances.
- Elastic Block Store (EBS): EBS enables customers to achieve up to 64,000 IOPS per volume and up to 930 MB/s of throughput.
- Network Speed: Depending on instance type, we can get to know the network by providing bandwidth ranging from 1 Gb/s to 100 Gb/s.
Google Compute Engine
- Instance Types: Google Compute Engine also provides various instance families to fit different workloads, such as high memory or compute-intensive workloads.
- Persistent Disks: Depending on the type of disk selected, GCE provides up to 30 IOPS per GB and up to 16 TB of capacity per volume.
- Network Speed: Google Compute Engine supports 10 Gb/s network connectivity between virtual machines and subnets.
Verdict
Based on our analysis, both Amazon EC2 and Google Compute Engine offer exceptional performance. However, GCE tends to perform slightly higher on specific benchmarks such as network connectivity.
Pricing
Pricing is another important factor while selecting an IaaS platform. Making a wise decision can save you a lot of money in the long run.
Amazon EC2
- On-Demand: Amazon EC2's On-Demand pricing model allows you to pay for compute capacity per hour or per second, with no long-term commitments or upfront payments.
- Reserved Instances: Amazon EC2's Reserved Instances model provides a significant discount (up to 75%) compared with On-Demand pricing.
- Spot Instances: allows you to bid on spare Amazon EC2 computer capacity for up to 90% less than On-Demand prices.
Google Compute Engine
- Preemptible VMs: Google Compute Engine's Preemptible VMs model can significantly reduce costs, up to 80% compared to standard pricing by running VMs on the resources that are underused.
- Sustained Use Discounts: provides an automatic discount rate when you use a resource for a significant portion of the billing month.
- Committed Use Discounts: When you commit to using a resource for a specific amount of time, you can receive a significant discount, up to 57%.
Verdict
It's a tie! Both Amazon EC2 and Google Compute Engine provide various methods to help you save money, depending on how you use their resources.
Scalability
A cloud platform's ability to scale quickly and efficiently is critical as your business grows and your needs change.
Amazon EC2
- Auto Scaling: Auto Scaling allows you to dynamically scale your EC2 capacity up or down automatically depending on the traffic load.
- Elastic Load Balancing: Elastic Load Balancing can scale traffic based on demand and automatically routes traffic to healthy instances.
- Elastic Block Store: Elastic Block Store allows you to dynamically change the storage capacity of Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances.
Google Compute Engine
- Managed Instance Groups: Managed Instance Groups can auto-scale up or down based on the instance metric or metrics of your choice.
- Load Balancing and Autoscaling: Load Balancing and Autoscaling can be utilized to automatically route traffic and scale instances up or down based on demand.
- Google Cloud Storage: Google Cloud Storage provides highly scalable object storage for unstructured data.
Verdict
Both Amazon EC2 and Google Compute Engine offer highly scalable solutions. Although, Amazon EC2 holds an edge due to its highly flexible Elastic Block Store feature.
Conclusion
As we can see, Amazon EC2 and Google Compute Engine are highly reliable, secure, and flexible cloud platforms. Though they have their differences, both are suitable for businesses of all sizes and industries. When it comes to selecting which IaaS platform is better, it ultimately depends on your business's specific needs.