Competitive Analysis

         

          There are intense competitions in the cloud computing services, and many vendors provide their original services to differentiate from competitors. In this section, we will compare similar vendors that can be a rival of Amazon Web Service. We consider Microsoft, IBM, and Google as the top competitors. As a matter of fact, some companies have packages and partnerships with large cloud providers. Digan (2018) states that Salesforce, which is a cloud based software company, has a partnership with AWS and Google works with IBM. It is important that customers choose a cloud computing vendor based on their needs.

Microsoft Azure

            Microsoft Azure provides a cloud computing service for building, managing, and deploying applications on a massive, global network. There are 95 percent of Fortune 500 businesses who utliaze the Microsoft Cloud service today. Azure offers global infrastructure in 54 regions in 140 countries and 120,000 new customer subscriptions per month. Azure has a 12 month free trial and free services for 750 hours per month of Linux and Windows Virtual Machines and 5GB of blob storage and file storage. Companies can lift and shift your SQL Server and Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2 workloads to Azure with no application code change right away (Microsoft Azure, 2018). Also, Azure has mobile backend needs covered with Parse Server (Microsoft Azure, 2018).

IBM Cloud

            IBM Cloud is a full stack cloud platform with over 170 products and services (IBM, 2018). The products and services include data, serverless, containers, artificial intelligence, IoT, and blockchain. IBM cloud is suitable for public, private, and hybrid environments. IBM said IBM Cloud is different from other cloud service companies for three main reasons. First, IBM Cloud offers more ways to migrate, modernize, build and easily connect innovative cloud applications. IBM Cloud users are able to move and manage their works across clouds easily. It also allows users to innovate or modernize their apps globally, which cause improving in responding to new demands and opportunities quicker. Second, IBM Cloud allows unlock more insight from all your data while speeding a business to AI. It is able to collect data of every type and organize the data in better ways. Finally, IBM Cloud helps a business confidently move to the cloud while ensuring continuous security for apps and data. IBM Cloud has industry-leading cloud security capabilities with decades of security experience. This service also covers security in cloud-native apps that deliver built-in isolation and automated tool chains (IBM, 2018)

Google Cloud

            Google Cloud is a set of solution and products, including Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and G Suite: Gmail, Calendar, Hangouts, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Sites, Jam board, App Maker, and Vault with the hybrid environment -- that can help a business solve business challenges. Google Cloud Platform has “18 regions, 55 zones, over 100 points of presence across 35 counties, and a well-provisioned global network with 100,00s of miles of fiber optic cable” (Google Cloud, 2018). Google will be suitable for business who would like to do international business. Moreover, Google said the Google Cloud security model is the same with their current uses for their our products and service, such as their website. Google Cloud users will receive world-scale infrastructure which keeps a business secure and compliant. In addition, a business will not have to worry about training their employees for their new cloud system. The business will work with experts who helped the Google Cloud infrastructure and guiding principles for successful implementation (Google Cloud, 2018).

Cost

            There are so many different types of cloud computing areas that catch IT administrators off guard. While some relate to Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) or Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) cloud setups, keep in mind that there are hidden costs to Software-as-a-Service models as well. However, different systems have different strength. Moreover, cloud computing systems are evolving, and AWS is a new business form to compete with IBM. Cloud business will come at little or no cost for a small or medium-sized organization. They will reduce your annual operating expenses and help save money because they do not depend on internal power to store information remotely. Additionally, open source technology can be a benefit but is not commercialized or business friendly so far since most of the open source technologies are developed by non-profit organizations and cannot be customized for commercial use without more resources invested.

Value

            Small and medium business companies with their limited budget are finding themselves in the middle of balancing between their client or employee needs and maintaining an efficient work environment. In today’s economy, the answer to the above problem is to invest in cloud computing. These different softwares’ possess different value, which will be compared to see which software has better value for IVK. Furthermore according to Linthicum, Google Cloud has value in the banking industry, the industry that IVK is in. Google cloud also offers a powerful combination of technology and comprehensive, pre-integrated business applications, which include essential functionality, built specifically for banks in which the world's top 10 banks uses this software (Linthicum, 2010). This system will also assist in minimizing operational costs and improving business profitability.

Risks

            When evaluating these potential substitutes, it is important to compare the different security risks associated with each because you do not want to save money on costs and end up with a risker cloud service. AWS is the largest of the group and has more experience as well as more employees working around the clock to protect customer data and make sure everything runs smoothly. Azure and and IBM have the best disaster recovery and data backup service.(Nordericks Technologies, 2018). Google Cloud and AWS have previously experienced outages, while they only lasted less than 10 minutes, those 10 minutes for a business are crucial because customers could be trying to access their website, make payments, or need to see their data and information. (Insider, 2015). Overall all of these companies are technically sound and very similar in their security and the types of risks that can occur. In addition, the behavioral risks for all of these companies is the same because managers at each of the consumers’ companies are the only ones who can control who they give access and login information to, as well as, how loose their security group policy is.

References:

Dignan, L. (2018, February 14). Top cloud providers 2018: how AWS, Microsoft, Google cloud platform, IBM cloud, Oracle, Alibaba stack up. ZDNET. Retrieved from https://www.zdnet.com/article/cloud-providers-ranking-2018-how-aws-microsoft-google-cloud-platform-ibm-cloud-oracle-alibaba-stack/

Google. (2018). Why Google. Retrieved from https://cloud.google.com/why-google-cloud/

Google. (2018). Trust & Security. Retrieved from https://cloud.google.com/security/

Google. (2018). Cloud Locations. Retrieved from https://cloud.google.com/about/locations/

IBM. (2018). Why IBM. Retrieved from https://www.ibm.com/cloud/why-ibm/

Insider, W. (2015, August 07). Amazon, Google Cloud Outages Highlight Bigger Risk.

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Microsoft Azure. (2018). Open source software on Azure. Retrieved from https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/overview/open-source/

Microsoft Azure. (2018). What is Azure? Retrieved from https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/

Nordericks Technologies. (2018, February 21). AWS vs Azure vs Google vs IBM Cloud, which is the best for me? Retrieved November 19, 2018, from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/aws-vs-azure-google-ibm-cloud-which-best-me-nodericks-technologies

Novet, J. (2018, April 27). Microsoft narrows Amazon’s lead in cloud, but the gap remains large. CNBC LLC. Retrieved from https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/27/microsoft-gains-cloud-market-share-in-q1-but-aws-still-dominates.html

Why should a business consider the cloud? [Advertisement]. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.cdw.com/content/cdw/en/solutions/cloud/cloud-benefits.html?gclid=Cj0KCQiA_s7fBRDrARIsAGEvF8Q_GfRZcJjbS3ucPHE6tO9Pbj9wvIJ5Ti22o8Ke8oS5I0k_RJUOUBQaAth0EALw_wcB&cm_ven=acquirgy&cm_cat=google&cm_pla=S3+Cloud&cm_ite=Benefits+B&ef_id=Cj0KCQiA_s7fBRDrARIsAGEvF8Q_GfRZcJjbS3ucPHE6tO9Pbj9wvIJ5Ti22o8Ke8oS5I0k_RJUOUBQaAth0EALw_wcB:G:s&s_kwcid=AL!4223!3!182246897995!b!!s!!%252Bcloud%2520%252Bbenefit&s_kwcid=AL!4223!3!182246897995!b!!s!!+cloud%2520+benefit

AWS vs azure vs google vs IBM cloud, which is the best for me? Nodericks Technologies. Retrieved from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/aws-vs-azure-google-ibm-cloud-which-best-me-nodericks-technologies/

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