Cloud Wars: Windows Azure vs. Amazon AWS, an IaaS perspective

During our recent Tellago Technology Update about cloud platforms, we received a number of questions related to equivalent capabilities in the Windows Azure and Amazon AWS platforms. That’s right, although Windows Azure is positioned as a Platform as a Service(PaaS), the fact of the matter is that there it includes many Infrastructure as a Service(IaaS) capabilities that are comparable to the Amazon AWS stack.

Given how often I see customers struggle to get an accurate evaluation of the capabilities of the different cloud platforms, I’ve decided to start a series of blog posts that compare and contrast the feature set of different cloud technology stacks.

From all the different cloud platforms in the current market, the comparison between Windows Azure and Amazon AWS seems to be at the top of the list of most Microsoft customers. The reason is pretty obvious, Amazon AWS is the clear dominant force in the IaaS market but Windows Azure brings a unique value proposition that combines IaaS, PaaS together with the deep integration with on-premise Microsoft technologies.

I think the following table might help illustrate the equivalent capabilities in both platforms.

In subsequent posts, we will start deep diving into specific comparisons of each one of these capabilities.