Question

- a. Amazon Web Services b. Google Cloud Platform c. Microsoft Azure d. IBM Bluemix

List the services/Products provided by each of the above mentioned cloud platform.

Submit a report in response to Step 6 to Dropbox submission folder. The world limit for the report 700 – 1000 (One Page).

Answer 1

1- Amazon Web Services

Amazon Web Services is a subordinate of Amazon that provides cloud computing platform to evolve an organization. AWS has always been a building block for those organization as they are used to create and develop any type of application over the cloud. Simplified implementation, high security, elasticity, scalability, and flexibility are some of the known advantages of Amazon Web Services. Additionally, Amazon has different services that cater to fulfill the requirements of different domains.

Some of the most widely used domains of Amazon Web Services are Compute, Storage, Database, Migration, Network and Content Delivery, Management Tools, and Security and Identity Compliance.

1. Amazon Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2)

2. Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)

3. Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)

4. Amazon CloudFront

5. Amazon Relational Database Services (RDS)

2- Google Cloud Platform

Google Cloud Platform (GCP) provides the following types of services -

• Computing and hosting

• Storage

• Databases

• Networking

• Big data

• Machine learning

Computing and hosting -

GCP gives you options for computing and hosting. You can choose to do the following:

• Work in a serverless environment.
• Use a managed application platform.
• Leverage container technologies to gain lots of flexibility.
• Build your own cloud-based infrastructure to have the most control and flexibility.

Storage services -

Whatever your application, you'll probably need to store some media files, backups, or other file-like objects. GCP provides a variety of storage services, including:

• Consistent, scalable, large-capacity data storage in Cloud Storage. Cloud Storage comes in several flavors:

  • Multi-Regional provides maximum availability and geo-redundancy.
  • Regional provides high availability and a localized storage location.
  • Nearline provides low-cost archival storage ideal for data accessed less than once a month.
  • Coldline provides the lowest-cost archival storage for backup and disaster recovery.

• Persistent disks on Compute Engine, for use as primary storage for your instances. Compute Engine offers both hard-disk-based persistent disks, called standard persistent disks, and solid-state persistent disks (SSD).

• Fully managed NFS file servers in Cloud Filestore. You can use Cloud Filestore instances to store data from applications running on Compute Engine VM instances or GKE clusters.

Database services -

GCP provides a variety of SQL and NoSQL database services:

• A SQL database in Cloud SQL, which provides either MySQL or PostgreSQL databases.

• A fully managed, mission-critical, relational database service in Cloud Spanner that offers transactional consistency at global scale, schemas, SQL querying, and automatic, synchronous replication for high availability.

• Two options for NoSQL data storage: Cloud Firestore, for document-like data, and Cloud Bigtable, for tabular data.

Networking services -

While App Engine manages networking for you, and GKE uses the Kubernetes model, Compute Engine provides a set of networking services. These services help you to load-balance traffic across resources, create DNS records, and connect your existing network to Google's network.

Big data services

Big data services enable you to process and query big data in the cloud to get fast answers to complicated questions.

Data analysis

BigQuery provides data analysis services. With BigQuery, you can:

• Create custom schemas that organize your data into datasets and tables.
• Load data from a variety of sources, including streaming data.
• Use SQL-like commands to query massive datasets very quickly. BigQuery is designed and optimized for speed.
• Use the web UI, command-line interface, or API.
• Load, query, export, and copy data by using jobs.
• Manage data and protect it by using permissions.

3- Microsoft  Azure products and services -

Compute -- These services enable a user to deploy and manage virtual machines (VMs), containers and batch processing, as well as support remote application access.

Web -- These services support the development and deployment of web applications, and also offer features for search, content delivery, application programming interface (API) management, notification and reporting.

Data storage -- This category of services provides scalable cloud storage for structured and unstructured data and also supports big data projects, persistent storage (for containers) and archival storage.

Analytics -- These services provide distributed analytics and storage, as well as features for real-time analytics, big data analytics, data lakes, machine learning, business intelligence (BI), internet of things (IoT) data streams and data warehousing.

Networking -- This group includes virtual networks, dedicated connections and gateways, as well as services for traffic management and diagnostics, load balancing, domain name system (DNS) hosting, and network protection against distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.

Media and content delivery network (CDN) -- These services include on-demand streaming, digital rights protection, encoding and media playback and indexing.

Hybrid integration -- These are services for server backup, site recovery and connecting private and public clouds.

Identity and access management (IAM) -- These offerings ensure only authorized users can access Azure services, and help protect encryption keys and other sensitive information in the cloud. Services include support for Azure Active Directory and multifactor authentication (MFA).

A look at the technology behind the Azure cloud.

Internet of things -- These services help users capture, monitor and analyze IoT data from sensors and other devices. Services include notifications, analytics, monitoring and support for coding and execution.

Development -- These services help application developers share code, test applications and track potential issues. Azure supports a range of application programming languages, including JavaScript, Python, .NET and Node.js. Tools in this category also include support for Visual Studio, software development kits (SDKs) and blockchain.

Security -- These products provide capabilities to identify and respond to cloud security threats, as well as manage encryption keys and other sensitive assets.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning -- This is a wide range of services that a developer can use to infuse machine learning, AI and cognitive computing capabilities into applications and data sets.

Containers -- These services help an enterprise create, register, orchestrate and manage huge volumes of containers in the Azure cloud, using common platforms such as Docker and Kubernetes.

Databases -- This category includes Database as a Service (DBaaS) offerings for SQL and NoSQL, as well as other database instances, such as Azure Cosmos DB and Azure Database for PostgreSQL. It also includes SQL Data Warehouse support, caching, and hybrid database integration and migration features.

DevOps -- This group provides project and collaboration tools, such as Visual Studio Team Services, that facilitate DevOps software development processes. It also offers features for application diagnostics, DevOps tool integrations, and test labs for build tests and experimentation.

Migration -- This suite of tools helps an organization estimate workload migration costs, and perform the actual migration of workloads from local data centers to the Azure cloud.

Mobile -- These products help a developer build cloud applications for mobile devices, providing notification services, support for back-end tasks, tools for building APIs and the ability to couple geospatial (location) context with data.

Management -- These services provide a range of backup, recovery, compliance, automation, scheduling and monitoring tools that can help a cloud administrator manage an Azure deployment.

4- IBM products and services

Server hardware

Five decades since the launch of the IBM System/360, the company continues to sell mainframe-class computers. IBM positions its z Systems product line as enterprise infrastructure for its customers' cognitive business. IBM targets a range of solutions for its z Series products including analytics, blockchain, cloud and DevOps.

Meanwhile, the company aims its Power Systems enterprise servers toward big data and analytics applications. Power Systems run IBM's AIX and IBM i OSes as well as Linux. In another nod to open source, IBM introduced its LinuxONE system as a hardware platform.

Storage

On the hardware side, IBM offers products including its FlashSystem all-flash arrays, Storwize systems and other hybrid arrays, Fibre Channel storage-area network hardware, storage media, and tape products. The company is making a push into software-defined storage with its Spectrum Storage suite and Cleversafe object storage technology.

Software

IBM's varied software line includes analytics offerings such as IBM Cognos Analytics, IBM SPSS, IBM Maximo Asset Management and DB2. Many of IBM's products in this field came through acquisition: The company purchased Maximo in 2006, Cognos in 2008 and SPSS in 2009.

IBM also provides IT infrastructure software including its WebSphere Application Server and MQ messaging middleware.

The company's software lineup in the mobile and social space includes the IBM Verse business email offering and the IBM Notes collaboration product. In addition, IBM's security software includes MaaS360 for mobile device security and IBM QRadar Security Intelligence Platform, a security information and event management product.

IBM customers may acquire software licenses through Passport Advantage, the company's licensing program for larger enterprises, or Passport Advantage Express, a program designed for medium-sized businesses. Fix Central, meanwhile, is an element of IBM support that provides fixes and updates for IBM customers' software and operating systems. Fix Central provides hardware support, as well.

Services

IBM's service units include Global Business Services, which houses Big Blue's management consulting operations, and Global Technology Services, which provides mobility, networking, business continuity and outsourcing, among other services. Like other large IT services providers, in recent years, IBM has moved to purchase companies offering cloud consulting and implementation services. In 2016, for example, IBM purchased Bluewolf, a Salesforce channel partner and cloud consultant. Bluewolf was folded into IBM's Interactive Experience practice, which is part of Global Business Services. In 2015, IBM acquired Meteorix LLC, a Workday services partner.

Cloud

IBM's SmartCloud software and services offering got off the ground in 2011. That move was followed in 2013 by IBM's acquisition of SoftLayer Technologies Inc., an infrastructure as a service provider. Following that deal, SmartCloud and SoftLayer were grouped together in a cloud services division. Since then, however, IBM has coalesced its cloud services offerings around its Bluemix platform as a service offering. As of fall 2016, Bluemix had incorporated SoftLayer cloud products and services into a broader portfolio of infrastructure, platform and application services. IBM's more integrated cloud offering competes against such rivals as Amazon Web Services, Google and Microsoft.

Cognitive offerings

The IBM Watson supercomputer, which pulls together artificial intelligence and analytical software, is the company's flagship cognitive computing offering. A number of technologies and discrete products have spun out of IBM's cognitive computing system and its related research. Customers, for example, can use Watson APIs to embed cognitive computing components into their applications. IBM also offers products with built-in cognitive capabilities. Those offerings include the IBM Watson Internet of Things Platform and IBM Watson Analytics for Social Media. IBM has looked to leverage its cloud technology as it rolls out Watson-related products. Watson APIs, for example, are available via Bluemix.

Research and development

Thomas J. Watson Jr., who succeeded his father as IBM CEO in 1956, put the company on a research and development track. Big Blue's research center, launched in 1961, encompasses research labs in Yorktown Heights, N.Y. and Cambridge, Mass., as well as an industry solution lab in Hawthorne, N.Y. Notable developments out of IBM's research center include the invention of dynamic random access memory and the Fortran language. More recent research endeavors include blockchain, quantum computing and cognitive technology.