Cloud Platforms Analysis
Need of Cloud for our Product
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Realtime Computation - Virtual Machines, serverless functions, backend services
hosting, user request handling (both driver and rider) and various other
computations that requires a 24*7 Operation
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Databases, Storage and Data Transfer - Realtime DB- relational or NoSql , for user
profiles, ride history, or transactional data. Real-time data synchronization, storage,
read/write operations, and data transfer. Object storage or cold storage for
infrequently accessed data, To minimize unnecessary data transfer to reduce cost.
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Networking - Optimizing network usage, implementing content delivery networks
(CDNs), and leveraging caching mechanisms. Real-time communication between
clients and servers.
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Authentication and Authorization - Along with basic user authentication, for
Drivers, their vehicle registration info, identity services integration like licenses, for
rider security
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Monitoring and Logging - Utilizing monitoring, logging, and analytics services to
track platform performance, diagnose issues, and analyze user behavior
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Additional Services and Integrations - Like promotion integration, Adverts,
product showcasing etc.
All above are the requirements (others are also there which will be know at the time of
development and usage analysis) that are cost-bearing for our product development.
Key Points to focus while selection of the Cloud services
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Scalability
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Easy for development
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Enterprise friendly
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Cost effective
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Flexibility, Security
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DevOps capabilities
Market Share of Various Cloud providers as on Q1 2023
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AWS = 32%
Azure = 23%
Google Cloud = 10%
Alibaba Cloud = 7%
IBM Cloud = 3%
Salesforce = 3%
Oracle = 2%
Tenant Cloud = 2%
Clearly AWS, Azure, GCP are market leaders so it would be beneficial to use those for best
stability, reliability.
Amazon Web Services
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Cons
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Complex Billing System
Multiple services are to be integrated for optimization and testing
Pros
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Best in terms of market share and features provided
Highest number of services/features offered.
Used by notable companies. OLA used AWS initially until Azure made a deal with
them with all their requirements met. Uber as a multi product Giant takes a multi
Cloud approach some services are based on AWS. Zerodha, Zomato, Swiggy also
use AWS.
Microsoft Azure
Pros
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Easy integration with other Microsoft products.
Hybrid cloud platform.
Notable companies using Azure services include OLA, Adobe, Netflix, Intel
Cons
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Complicated interface
Costly pricing
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Least number of features provided
Google Cloud Platform
Pros
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Straight forward pricing model
Best services provided for Serverless Development
Notable companies using GCP include Uber (announced in 2023), Rapido, Groww
Cons
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Computation is costly compared to AWS for smaller traffics
Small market share compared to other 2.
For our use case the most fundamental is Geolocation tracking services, Google Maps
platform, part of Google Cloud, will be used.
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Our Product App will be made using FLutter, GCP and Firebase have better and seamless
connectivity with flutter SDK, compared to AWS or Azure integration. Since both the
companies offer similar services for every requirement, Below is the comparison between
AWS, Azure and GCP for the features;
Compute Services/Virtual Machines :
Amazon EC2
Google Compute Engine
Azure Virtual Machines
All three companies offer almost similar services for Virtual Machines, for trail and hands
on testing, AWS has more to offer than GCP and Azure
GCP offers only 20 products in free tier to try, test and build
AWS offers all the services to try, test and build some for a month, 12 months or lifetime.
Pricing wise for larger use cases, based on analysis the prices can be compared using the
respective calculator provided by both the companies, Generally AWS is cheaper than GCP
for medium to high traffic use cases. Both have a pay-as-you-go model with comparable
price offerings, AWS being relatively cheaper again.
Storage, Databases and Disks:
Prices are fairly similar for all the cloud platforms for this service, Inbound data flow is free
in both, Outbound data flow is charged, similar to Phone call services where incoming used
to be free and outgoing was charged.
Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, Azure Blob Storage
Storage, Database, Server Migration in Future:
All three are migration friendly, with ample official documentation, AWS highest market
share hence enjoys largest online community, then comes GCP, GCP also widely supports
Open-source and 3rd party integration, AWS also has an Open-source community, but
unlike GCP it is not managed by them.
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Networking, CDN, DNS and Load Balancing
Load balancing services are different in all three they all take a unique approach, none has
the edge above other, application of these techniques results in similar output.
AWS offers different compute engines with different IPs for different types of traffic, which
are routed to manage load.
Compute Engine provides a single Ip to connect with different types of Compute Engines
and their respective traffic.
Networking, CDN and DNS services provided by all three of them are similar including
security services.
For Development purposes, GCP offers, FIrebase every solution under one Dashboard,
while for Azure and AWS different services are to be used for complete Development.
Conclusion
All three of them provide similar services, enough for complete development of our
product, Azure being costly and serverless development is not provided hence not suitable
for our use case, In AWS every problem/requirement has a solution but it becomes
overwhelming for a time constrained development, basically the learning curve is steep
compared to GCP, there is no tool like Firebase which provides solution to most
requirements under 1 roof, for Building, Testing/Analysis and Monitoring, and has a
seamless integration with other GCP tools.
Services Comparison Table.
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