Cloud services keep evolving, and cloud storage is no different. It can be difficult to keep up to date with the latest from each cloud provider and understand how they compare. We’ll drill down on object, block, archival, and file storage for the leading public clouds. We’ll also compare prices for a variety of storage scenarios.

1. AWS VS. AZURE VS. GOOGLE
CLOUD STORAGE DEEP DIVE

2. • Brian Adler
• Director, Enterprise Architecture, RightScale
• Kim Weins
• VP Marketing, RightScale
Panelists
1

3. It’s a Multi-Cloud World
2

4. # of Clouds Used
Public Clouds
All public cloud
users
Private Clouds
All private cloud
users
Running applications 1.8 2.3
Experimenting 1.8 2.1
Total 3.6 4.4
Average # of Clouds for Cloud Users
Source: RightScale 2017 State of the Cloud Report

5. Resource Pools
Public Cloud 1
Requirements
Filters
Performance
Cost
Compliance
Geo-location
Security
Match Application Requirements to Clouds
4
Vendors
Existing DC
App 1 App 2
Application
Portfolio
App 1
App 2
App 3
App n
…
App 4
App 5
Public Cloud 2
Private
Virtualized
Bare-Metal
App 3
App 4 App 5
App 6
App 7

6. Two Ways to Manage Cloud
5

7. • Block Storage
• Object Storage
• Hot
• Cool
• Cold (Archival)
• File Storage
• Pricing
• Why not IBM? With the combining of SoftLayer into BlueMix, we were no
longer able to find the detailed data we needed for comparison. We hope
to include them in the future.
Agenda
6

8. • AWS
• Elastic file storage, EFS
• Elastic EBS
• Azure
• Managed Disks
• Storage Service Encryption
• Azure Backup for Premium Storage
• StorSimple Virtual Array
• Azure Cool Blob Storage
• Storage Explorer
• Google
• Move to 4 storage classes – Multi-Regional, Regional, Nearline, Coldline
• Lifecycle management
What’s New Over the Last Year
7

9. • Allows dynamic modifications of:
• Volume size (increase only)
• Performance
• Volume Type
• No need to “provision for the future” initially. Volume can grow
to meet future needs
• Can increase/decrease IOPS performance to meet dynamic
or scheduled workload fluctuations
AWS Elastic EBS

10. BLOCK STORAGE

11. AWS Azure Google
Service Name EBS Managed Disks Persistent Disk
Availability SLA 99.95% 99.99% 99.95%
Volume Types Throughput Optimized HDD
General Purpose SSD
PIOPs SSD
Magnetic (previous gen)
Cold HDD
Standard
Premium
Standard
SSD
IOPs/GB for SSD GP SSD = 3
PIOPS SSD up to 50
4-5 30
Block Storage - Overview
10

12. AWS Azure Google
Service Name Throughput Optimized
HDD
Standard Standard
Volume Sizes 500GB to 16TB 1GB to 1TB 1GB to 64TB
Max IOPs per volume
500 500 3,000 read, 15,000 write
Max Throughput per volume
(MB/s) 500 60 180 read, 120 write
Replication Within the AZ
(essentially RAID-1)
LRS – multiple copies
within datacenter
Built-in redundancy
Notes Optimized for large,
sequential I/O. Use SSD for
random, small reads.
Block Storage - Magnetic
11

13. AWS Azure Google
Service Name General Purpose and
PIOPs SSD
Premium SSD
Volume Sizes 1GB to 16TB
4GB to 16TB for PIOPs
1GB to 1TB 1GB to 64TB
Max IOPs per volume
10,000 (20,000 for PIOPs) 5000 40,000 read, 30,000 write
Max Throughput per volume
(MB/s) 160 (320 for PIOPs) 200 800 read, 400 write
Replication Within the AZ
(essentially RAID-1)
LRS – multiple copies
within datacenter
Built-in redundancy
Notes Max IOPs of 65,000 per
instance
Block Storage - SSD
12

14. AWS Azure Google
Snapshot Redundancy Multiple AZs in the region Multiple zones in the region Multiple locations
Snapshots available cross-region No Yes No
Encryption Available; SSE 256-bit AES Azure Disk Encryption (Public
Preview); SSE 256-bit AES
Default; SSE 256-bit AES
Encryption at rest Yes, via encrypted volumes Yes, via ADE and
Azure Key Vault
Yes
Encryption in transit
(instance to volume)
Yes, for encrypted volumes Yes Yes
Encryption of snapshots Yes, for encrypted volumes None noted in documentation Yes
Cloud provider controls keys Available Available Available
User controls keys Available Available Available
KMS Available Available
(Azure Key Vault)
Available. Not supported for
Google Cloud Storage.
Block Storage – Snapshots/Encryption
13

15. AWS Azure Google
Name of Services EBS Managed Disk Persistent Disk
Magnetic $0.045 $0.030 $0.040
SSD
(per GB-month)
$0.100 P10: 128 GB $0.140
P20: 512 GB $0.130
P30: 1024 GB $0.120
$0.170
Included IOPS 3 IOPS/GB 500/2300/5000 30 IOPS/GB
PIOPs SSD
(per GB-month)
$.125 N/A N/A
PIOPs SSD
(per IOPs)
$0.065 N/A N/A
Snapshots
(per GB-month)
$0.050 $0.026 S20: $0.043
Block Storage - Prices
Source: RightScaleAs of Apr 7, 2017

16. AWS
monthly cost
Azure
monthly cost
Google
monthly cost
Name of Services EBS Managed Disk Persistent Disk
Magnetic
500 GB
$22.50 $20.00 $21.76
SSD
500 GB, 1000 IOPs
$50.00 $17.92
P20 – 2300 IOPs
$85.00
Includes 15,000 IOPs
SSD
500 GB, 2000 IOPs
$192.50
PIOPs SSD
$66.56
P20 – 2300 IOPs
$85.00
Includes 15,000 IOPs
SSD
500 GB, 5000 IOPs
$387.50
PIOPs SSD
$122.88
P30 – 5000 IOPs
$85.00
Includes 15,000 IOPs
Snapshots
500 GB
$25.00 $21.76 $13.00
Block Storage - Scenarios
Source: RightScaleAs of Apr 7, 2017

17. Block Storage Comparison
16
$85.00
$85.00
$85.00
$21.76
$13.00
$122.88
$66.56
$17.92
$20.00
$21.76
$387.50
$192.50
$50.00
$22.50
$25.00
SSD (500GB, 5000 IOPs)
SSD (500GB, 2000 IOPs)
SSD (500GB, 1000 IOPs)
Magnetic (500GB)
Snapshots (500GB)
Cloud Block Storage Comparison
AWS EBS
Azure Managed Disk
Google Persistent Disk
Source: RightScaleAs of Apr 7, 2017

18. OBJECT STORAGE

19. AWS Azure Google
Service Name S3 Azure Storage (Blobs) Google Cloud Storage
Availability SLA 99.95% 99.99% 99.95%
Hot S3 Standard Hot Blob Storage GCS
Cool S3 Standard – Infrequent
Access
Cool Blob Storage GCS Nearline
Cold (Archival) Glacier Use Cool Blob Storage GCS Coldline
# Object Limits Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited
Size Limit 5 TB/Object 500 TB/account 5TB per object
Object Storage - Overview
18

20. AWS Azure Google
Service Name S3 Standard Hot Blob Storage GCS
Replication Automatic within region;
Option for cross-region
at extra cost
LRS (3 copies in same
datacenter), GRS (3 copies
each in 2 regions). RA-GRS
(GRS with read access)
Regional or Multi-regional
Durability (Designed for) 11 9's Not specified 11 9's
Availability (SLA) 99.9% 99.9%
(99.99% for RAGRS reads)
99.9%
(99.95% for Multi-regional)
Min Storage Time N/A N/A N/A
First Byte Latency milliseconds milliseconds milliseconds
Object Storage - Hot
19

21. AWS Azure Google
Service Name S3 Infrequent Access Cool Blob Storage Nearline
Replication Automatic within region;
Option for cross-region at
extra cost
LRS, GRS, RA-GRS Regional
Durability (Designed for) 11 9's Not specified 11 9's
Availability (SLA) 99% 99%
(99.9% for RAGRS reads)
99%
Min Storage Time 30 days N/A 30 days
First Byte Latency milliseconds milliseconds milliseconds
Object Storage - Cool
20

22. AWS Azure Google
Service Name Glacier Use Cool Blob Storage Coldline
Replication Automatic within region;
Option for cross-region at
extra cost
LRS, GRS, RA-GRS Regional
Durability (Designed for) 11 9's Not specified 11 9's
Availability (SLA) 99% 99%
(99.9% for RAGRS reads)
99%
Min Storage Time 90 days N/A 90 days
First Byte Latency select from minutes or
hours
milliseconds milliseconds
Object Storage – Cold/Archival
21

23. AWS Azure Google
Encryption at rest
Available; SSE 256-bit
AES
Available; SSE 256-bit
AES
Default; SSE 256-bit AES
Encryption in transit
(instance to volume)
Use CSE or TLS Use CSE or TLS Use CSE or TLS
Cloud provider controls keys Available Available Available
User controls keys Available Only for CSE (data in
transit). Not supported for
Azure Storage Service
Encryption (data at rest)
Available
KMS Available Only for CSE (data in
transit). Not supported for
Azure Storage Service
Encryption (data at rest)
Available. Not supported
for Google Cloud Storage.
Object Storage – Encryption
22

24. AWS Azure Google
Service Name S3/Glacier Blob Storage GCS
Hot Multi-Region
per GB-month
S3 Standard x2 $0.0460
Transfer $.0100
RA-GRS $0.0460
Transfer $.0200
Multi-regional $0.0260
Transfer included
Hot Single Region
per GB-month
Standard $0.0230 LRS-Hot $0.0184 Regional $0.0200
Cool Single Region
per GB-month
Infrequent access $0.0125 LRS-Cool $0.0100 Nearline $0.0100
Cold Single Region
per GB-month
Glacier $0.0040 LRS-Cool $0.0100 Coldline $0.0070
Object Storage - Prices
Source: RightScaleAs of Apr 7, 2017

25. AWS
monthly cost
Azure
monthly cost
Google
monthly cost
Name of Services S3/Glacier Blob Storage GCS
Hot Multi-Region
1000 GB stored
1000 GB transferred
$56.00 $66.00 $26.00
Hot Single Region
1000 GB stored
$23.00 $18.40 $20.00
Cool Single Region
1000 GB stored
$12.50 $10.00 $10.00
Cold Single Region
1000 GB stored
$4.00 $10.00 $7.00
Object Storage - Scenarios
Source: RightScaleAs of Apr 7, 2017

26. Object Storage Comparison
25
$7.00
$10.00
$20.00
$26.00
$10.00
$10.00
$18.40
$66.00
$4.00
$12.50
$23.00
$56.00
Cold Single region (1000GB store)
Cool Single region (1000GB store)
Hot Single region (1000GB store)
Hot Multi-region (1000GB store/xfer)
Cloud Object Storage Comparison
AWS Azure Google
Source: RightScaleAs of Apr 7, 2017

27. FILE STORAGE

28. AWS Azure Google
Service Name EFS Azure File Storage GCS + FUSE adapter
Storage size Scales elastically to
petabytes
5TB per file share, 500TB
per storage account
Scaling Automatic Manual Manual
Attach to multiple
VMs
Yes Yes One read/write volume and
many read-only, or NFS, or
SMB, or Gluster
Replication Multiple AZs in the region LRS or GRS Built-in redundancy
Throughput 50MB/s (burst to 100) per
TB of storage
60MB/s per file share 180 MB/s read, 120 MB/s
write
On-premise support NFS v4.1 SMB 3.0 NFS, SMB
Backup Use 3rd party tools, AWS
Data Pipeline, sync to EBS
+snapshot.
Azure Backup Snapshots
Encryption at rest No (future) SSE in Preview Yes
File Storage - Overview
27

29. • The three options are a bit apples-to-oranges
• AWS EFS $.300 per GB-month
• Includes all replication and data transfer
• Pay for what you use
• Azure File Storage $.080 per GB-month
• Pay all normal replication and transfer charges
• Pay for what you provision, even if not using it
• Google Cloud Storage (+FUSE) $.020 per GB-month
• Pay all normal replication and transfer charges
• Pay for what you provision, even if not using it
File Storage – Prices
28

30. • Free Cloud Comparison Tool
• cloudcomparison.rightscale.com
• IT as a Cloud Broker
• www.rightscale.com/cloud-broker-white-paper
Q&A
29