okay hello cloud guru scott pletcher
here and welcome to
cloud provider comparisons in this
series we take a look at the same cloud
service across
different cloud providers we'll look at
the similarities and differences and
anything else that might be
interesting in this episode we're going
to dive into one of the most common use
cases for the cloud
storage storage is one of those services
that is foundational to cloud providers
and is usually a relatively easy way
companies
first get started with the cloud if
you're curious as to how the storage
services of azure
gcp and aws stack up
stick around
now data storage is a pretty broad topic
we can store data on paper on disk on
magnetic tape on
optical disk in non-volatile random
access memory
we can even store data in the dna of
bacteria
but warehousing all this data takes up
space and costs money not to mention
that some of the data storage media
just isn't designed for the long term
enter
the cloud cloud providers have figured
out how to create a variety of storage
methods
at scale resulting in very high
reliability for relatively low cost
plus you're able to pay for only what
you use and pay for the performance and
features
that you require for your data storage
needs for our comparison we're going to
be looking at
object storage block storage file
storage and
archive storage we'll also compare how
the cloud providers can help us get our
massive amounts of local data
into their storage platforms
let's start with object storage now in
the context of object storage services
an object
is a file your impressive collection of
70s yacht-rock mp3s
are objects and they can be stored in
the cloud on object storage services
aws calls their object storage offering
simple storage service or
s3 for short gcp calls theirs the aptly
named cloud storage
azure ups the geek quotient a bit by
calling theirs
blob storage blob is just an acronym
that means binary large object another
word for
file both aws and gcp call the thing
that you put your data in
a bucket while azure calls it a
container
beyond this though all the storage
services have
way more in common than they have
differences
they all offer versioning encryption at
rest and fine grained security
including options to make your object
publicly accessible
or completely private they also offer
different tiers of storage classes the
more performant and redundant the
storage class
the more you will pay additionally all
the object storage services offer the
option to pay less
for less frequently accessed data aws
has their
infrequently accessed storage class
azure calls it the cool
tier blob storage and gcp has near line
and cold line storage classes now since
we're talking about
infrequently accessed data we should
also talk about archiving
many organizations are required to hold
on to their data for a certain amount of
time
for regulatory or legal reasons
and this can become very expensive and
cloud providers have stepped up
with their own low-cost archiving
solutions
both azure and gcp call their archiving
solution
archive while aws is the odd one out
here by naming theirs
glacier another archiving challenge is
that you might be obligated to get rid
of data
after its required retention period has
elapsed now fortunately all the
providers we're talking about today
have storage lifecycle management built
right into their object storage services
and this automatically can delete those
expired objects
without you having to do it manually
let's move on to file storage now yes
object storage is used to store files
but
object storage has more in common with a
database
than it does a hard drive or a usb stick
as such object storage usually isn't
optimized for
performance if you need high performance
you'll want a storage service that has a
high number of input output operations
per second or
iops in this case file storage or block
storage which we'll cover
next would be your best option think of
file storage as that shared drive on
your network
common file storage services will
provide nfs or smb access
allowing other systems to attach over
the network
and use that storage as if it were a
local volume
google cloud platform calls their file
storage offering
file store well azure name their option
files the same type of service is called
elastic file system or efs on aws
now once again these services are pretty
much the same with some differences in
protocol offered
maximum volume size and performance
aws also has two additional file storage
options
amazon fsx for windows optimized for use
in windows server environments
and amazon fsx for
luster optimized for high performance
computing use cases
now if you have the need the need for
speed
lock storage is where it's at think of
block storage as just a raw
hard drive it's going to usually provide
the highest iops
all the cloud providers have block
storage options because that's pretty
much required to run virtual machines
block storage is what lets our virtual
machines boot into their operating
system and it's
pretty elemental without much
differentiation
aws has elastic block store azure calls
there's azure managed disks
and gcp calls there's persistent disks
and solid state disks
you can provision a very fast ssd device
or
save some money with more traditional
magnetic hard drives
scheduled and ad hoc snapshots allow you
to backup
restore and duplicate your block storage
devices and encryption
of block storage is mouse click easy
across all providers
[Music]
now all this cloud talk is well and good
but how can we get our data
into the cloud in the first place the
most basic way supported by all
providers is to simply upload it using
their respective web ui
or command line interface we might use a
command line tool like rsync
or rclone to upload the data as well
both aws and azure offer virtual
appliances that we can download and
install
in our own data center which act as
transfer gateways
syncing the data to the cloud in the
background we can do the same thing with
gcp but
as of this recording it requires
third-party options
but what if we have petabytes of data
stashed in our data center
it will take years to transfer all that
data even over the fastest internet
connections
and that my friends is why we can never
underestimate the bandwidth
of a delivery truck all the cloud
providers let you ship your data via
post
using hard drives azure data box disk
is basically a box full of ssd drives
with a usb
3.0 port fill up the discs with up to 40
terabytes of data ship it back to
microsoft
and your data is loaded into your
storage account
azure also has a larger version capable
of up to a petabyte called
azure data box heavy that kind of
resembles a roadie case from the last
iron maiden tour gcp has a similar
hardware device called
transfer appliance that can also
accommodate up to a petabyte in one
round trip but the current king
of data import is aws with their snow
family aside from being storage sherpas
aws snow cone and snowball devices also
include compute hardware
allowing them to perform like little aws
data centers
then there's also aws snowmobile which
is a freaking huge
tractor trailer that will drive to your
data center
plug in and ingest up to 100 petabytes
of data
at 240 gigabits per second
as you can see storage options across
aws azure and gcp
are pretty common and that's to be
expected storage has become
largely a commodity with providers
focusing on improving performance
and reducing price if you'd like to
learn more about
any of these cloud services head on over
to the a cloud guru platform
for videos and hands-on labs covering
all these services
except maybe for that snowmobile truck
thing i don't think we have a hands-on
lab
involving that one just yet well my
friends this has been
cloud provider comparisons storage
edition
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