- Major cloud computing platforms such as Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, IBM Cloud, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and Alibaba Cloud provide a wide range of cloud services, including computing, storage, data analysis, machine learning, etc.
- Most of these platforms adopt a pay-as-you-go billing model, where users only pay for the resources and services they actually use.
The full text introduces six major cloud computing platforms: Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, IBM Cloud, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, Alibaba Cloud and DigitalOcean. Each platform provides a variety of cloud services, including computing, storage, data analysis and machine learning, etc. Supporting users in different ways to develop, run and manage applications on the public cloud.
Also read: Amazon to charge for new AI Alexa
Also read: Amazon to invest $17 billion in cloud infrastructure in Spain
1. Microsoft Azure
Microsoft Azure (formerly Windows Azure) is Microsoft’s public cloud computing platform. It offers a wide range of cloud services, including computing, analytics, storage, and networking. Users can choose from these services and develop and scale new applications or run existing applications in the public cloud. Microsoft charges Azure on a pay-as-you-go (PAYG) basis, which means that subscribers receive a monthly bill that charges only for the specific resources and services they use. When customers subscribe to Azure, they have access to all the services included in the Azure portal. Subscribers can use these services to create cloud-based resources, such as virtual machines and databases. Azure resources and services can then be assembled into an operating environment for hosting workloads and storing data.
2. Google Cloud Platform
Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is a set of cloud computing services provided by Google, part of Google Cloud, including the Google Cloud Platform public cloud infrastructure, as well as Google Workspace (G Suite), enterprise versions of Android and ChromeOS, and application programming interfaces (APIs) for machine learning and enterprise mapping services. GCP provides infrastructure services, platform services, and a serverless computing environment on servers running Google Search and YouTube. In addition to providing management tools, Google Cloud Platform also provides a series of modular cloud services, including cloud computing, data storage, data analysis and machine learning. Users need to provide credit card or bank account payment information when registering an account.
GCP uses advanced analysis, machine learning services and APIs to enable researchers to quickly and easily transform data into valuable insights. It reduces analysis time from days to minutes and enables seamless collaboration across institutions. It helps students, educators and researchers make progress in all aspects and provides solutions for information storage, analysis, big data, machine learning and application development needs.
3. IBM Cloud
IBM Cloud provides flexible scalability and data durability of up to 99.99%. By applying immutable retention policies that cannot be deleted even by malicious actors, it helps protect data from tampering or manipulation by ransomware attacks and helps customers meet compliance and business requirements. With patented SecureSlice erasure coding resiliency, encrypted data can be dispersed across multiple geographies while achieving instant data consistency and avoiding replication lag and additional costs. IBM is typically used to manage storage for AI and analytics, optimize backup and recovery, and simplify cloud-native application data storage and data archiving.
4. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI)
OCI mainly includes Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS).Oracle’s cloud infrastructure was officially released on October 20, 2016, under the name “Oracle Bare Metal Cloud Service”. Oracle Bare Metal Cloud Services was renamed Oracle Cloud Infrastructure in 2018 and was dubbed Oracle’s “second generation cloud” at Oracle OpenWorld 2018. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure offerings include services such as compute, storage, networking, governance, data management, and more. The next generation cloud is designed to run any application at lower cost, faster, and more securely.
5. Alibaba Cloud
Alibaba Cloud, also known as Aliyun, is a cloud computing company and a subsidiary of Alibaba Group. Alibaba Cloud provides cloud computing services for online businesses and Alibaba’s own e-commerce ecosystem. Its international operations are registered and based in Singapore. Alibaba Cloud provides pay-per-use cloud services, including elastic computing, data storage, relational databases, big data processing, anti-DDoS protection, and content distribution networks (CDN). Alibaba Cloud provides cloud computing IaaS, PaaS, DBaaS and SaaS, including e-commerce, big data, database, Internet of Things, object storage (OSS), Kubernetes aliyun and data customisation services, which can be performed from the Alibaba webpage or using command line tools manage.
6. DigitalOcean
DigitalOcean is a cloud hosting provider that offers cloud computing services and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). The company is known for its price and scalability, and teams can deploy on DigitalOcean in seconds, with plans starting at just $5 per month. This structure helps anyone get up and running quickly in the cloud. The benefit of this platform is that it removes the complexity of deploying infrastructure. For startups and independent studios, it offers a feature-rich and simple platform (at no additional cost). As the project grows, the team can easily adapt. But since DigitalOcean is geared toward developers, they emphasise Linux deployments and don’t support OS or Windows. Additionally, if you want to run SAP or Microsoft SQL, you may need to choose a different platform.
