Major Cloud Platforms

AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) are the three hyperscale cloud providers, collectively holding ~66% of public cloud market share (2024). AWS leads with the broadest service catalogue (~240+ services), Azure excels in enterprise Windows/.NET workloads and hybrid scenarios, while GCP differentiates on data analytics (BigQuery) and Kubernetes (GKE's origin). Understanding service equivalents across clouds is critical for multi-cloud governance and avoiding accidental lock-in.

Key Points

• AWS global infrastructure: 33 regions, 105 AZs (2024); Azure: 60+ regions; GCP: 40 regions.
• AWS object storage (S3) pioneered the industry; Azure Blob Storage and GCP Cloud Storage are functionally equivalent with minor API differences.
• Managed Kubernetes: EKS (AWS), AKS (Azure), GKE (GCP) — GKE is most feature-complete as Kubernetes originated at Google.
• Serverless compute: AWS Lambda (most mature), Azure Functions (deep .NET/Visual Studio integration), GCP Cloud Functions/Cloud Run.
• Data warehousing: AWS Redshift (columnar, RA3 nodes), Azure Synapse Analytics, GCP BigQuery (serverless, per-query billing) — BigQuery's serverless pricing model is a differentiator.
• IAM primitives differ: AWS uses IAM Roles + Policies (JSON), Azure uses Entra ID + RBAC (role assignments on scopes), GCP uses Service Accounts + IAM Bindings.
• Egress costs are a key financial lever — all three providers charge for data leaving the cloud region (~$0.09/GB), incentivizing single-cloud architectures.
• Marketplace offerings (AWS Marketplace, Azure Marketplace, GCP Marketplace) allow purchasing third-party software against cloud billing commitments.