Introduction⌗

Dear reader, here i shall share my opinions about the different Cloud Service Providers (CSP) I’ve worked with in the past. Please note, this is my opinion, and mine alone. I’ve formed this based on my own way of working developed over my entire career. I’ve touched AWS, GCP, Azure, Softlayer and Scaleway. One more then the other.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)⌗

Amazon Web Services I’ve touched briefly in 2015, and almost daily since 2017. I’ve seen it being used and abused in ways it was not indented to be used. The great thing about AWS is it’s versatility in use cases it can perform for. If you want simple IaaS, PaaS or SaaS products it can do the job. Event driven data processing? Not a problem. Want to run kubernetes? Not a problem if you want to sit for it. As AWS EKS is not cutting edge and runs a few versions behind, it does not have the latest and greatest featured to date. But it is the ONLY CSP that dares to run Oracle (SE/EE) on their database platform (RDS).

One thing that I’ve found easy to use in the AWS ecosystem, is the execution of least privileged access controls via IAM. You can make it as fine grained as you need to. And should in my humble opinion. The biggest drawback of AWS is that you have to DIY almost everything. But that might also be one if the biggest advantages of AWS.

Google Cloud Platform (GCP)⌗

Google started to arise as a CSP in my early years of professional IT. The primary thing, from what I’ve observed, was it was a tremendous great Big Data platform. Especially great in map reduce. But i haven’t started using it till 2020. As of 2020 i run multiple kubernetes clusters (GKE) that are autonomously updating itself on the RAPID release channel. In fact, this website is running on one of them. The ease of use of GCP was a big surprise to me. The amount Google has though of providing you out of the box, compared to AWS, is outstanding. But this might also be a big trap door to fall for. As you might provide too much access to your roles / service accounts.

And if you want to run kubernetes. Go to google if you want the ease of almost 0 maintenance.

Azure Cloud⌗

I have only briefly touched Azure Cloud. And if you’re a Microsoft minded person, you might actually be able to work with it. But i have a strong dislike to Microsoft, for many reasons, and would discourage anyone to go to Azure. Solely for the reason that it a tough cloud to get into if you’re used to AWS or GCP. The level of abstractions is unheard of. Also it’s quite tied into the Azure Active Directory (AAD) and that might also be it’s pitfall. Were AWS has roles, GCP has service accounts. Azure has Applications which in turn are basically service accounts. Without one, you can not do proper RBAC.

If you want Oracle in Azure, that’s possible.. They’ll send you a quote with physical hardware, put into the Azure DC of your region, and provide managed hosting on it. But the rest you have to do..