This article serves as an introduction to a series designed to help Amazon Web Services (AWS) experts grasp the fundamentals of the Microsoft Azure platform, including accounts and services. Whether you’re considering a multicloud strategy leveraging both Azure and AWS, or planning a migration from AWS to Azure, understanding the comparative capabilities of each platform is crucial. This guide highlights the key similarities and differences between AWS and Azure, offering a side-by-side comparison across various service categories.
This series of articles will delve into:
- Understanding Azure capabilities from an AWS professional’s standpoint.
- How Azure structures accounts and resources.
- Key distinctions and similarities between core Azure services and their AWS counterparts.
Utilize the table of contents to navigate to technology domains most relevant to your specific workload. These articles provide comparisons of services that are broadly analogous. It’s important to note that not every AWS or Azure service is listed, and not all matched services offer exact feature-for-feature equivalence.
Core Platform Similarities and Key Differences
Both AWS and Azure are built upon a foundational suite of AI, compute, storage, database, and networking services. In numerous instances, both platforms offer remarkably similar products and services. For example, both AWS and Azure exhibit robust support for Linux distributions and a wide array of open-source software technologies. Furthermore, both platforms empower users to architect highly available solutions on both Windows and Linux environments.
While the overarching capabilities of both platforms are comparable, the underlying resources that deliver these capabilities are often organized using different paradigms. Having evolved independently, Azure and AWS present notable implementation and design variances. For instance, AWS heavily relies on accounts as a primary logical boundary for essential functions such as permission management and expenditure tracking. Azure, while also employing subscriptions which are conceptually akin to AWS accounts, introduces resource groups. Resource groups in Azure offer a more granular level of logical grouping and management of resources within a subscription.
It’s also important to recognize that direct service-to-service correspondence between the two platforms isn’t always straightforward. In some cases, a particular service might be exclusively offered by only one of the platforms.
Key Areas of Azure Services for AWS Professionals
To gain a deeper understanding of Azure services and their mappings to familiar AWS services, explore the following articles. These resources provide detailed insights into Azure’s operational mechanisms within these specific domains:
Exploring Additional Services: Azure and AWS Service Mapping
The preceding overview is not exhaustive. The following tables provide a broader comparison, mapping additional AWS services to their corresponding Azure counterparts, along with concise service descriptions.
Marketplace Services Compared
| AWS service |
Azure service |
Description |
| AWS Marketplace |
Azure Marketplace |
Both marketplaces offer readily deployable and pre-configured partner applications, ranging from single virtual machine (VM) solutions to complex multi-VM architectures. You can procure Software as a Service (SaaS) offerings from both platforms. Many of these solutions qualify towards your Azure consumption commitment. Refer to Azure consumption commitment benefit for eligibility details. |
Time Series Databases and Analytics Services Compared
| AWS service |
Azure service |
Description |
| Amazon Timestream |
Azure Data Explorer |
Azure Data Explorer stands out as a fully managed, low-latency, distributed big data analytics platform. It excels in executing intricate queries across petabytes of data and is specifically optimized for log and time series data analysis. |
DevOps and Application Monitoring Services Compared
| AWS service |
Azure service |
Description |
| Amazon CloudWatch and AWS X-Ray |
Azure Monitor |
Azure Monitor delivers a comprehensive solution for collecting, analyzing, and acting upon telemetry data emanating from both your cloud and on-premises environments. For in-depth application performance monitoring, leverage Application Insights, a feature within Azure Monitor, to instrument your application code. In AWS, a typical approach involves utilizing both X-Ray and CloudWatch in conjunction. |
| AWS CodeDeployAWS CodeCommit (deprecated) AWS CodePipeline AWS CodeConnections AWS CodeBuild |
Azure DevOps GitHub GitHub Actions |
Azure DevOps is a unified platform concentrating on collaboration, continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD), code testing, artifact management, security testing, and code repository management. GitHub, a cloud-based platform, serves as a hub for showcasing, collaborating on, and managing code. GitHub Actions enables the automation of software development workflows. While AWS offers a suite of code-related products encompassing many of these functions, it’s worth noting that AWS no longer provides a native code repository for new customers, instead facilitating integration with partner repositories through CodeConnections. |
| AWS CLIAWS Tools for PowerShell AWS SDKs |
Azure CLIAzure PowerShell Azure SDKs |
These services are built upon the foundation of native REST APIs across all cloud services. They provide programming language-specific wrappers, streamlining the process of building solutions. |
| AWS CloudShell |
Azure Cloud Shell |
Azure Cloud Shell offers an interactive, authenticated, browser-based shell environment for managing Azure resources. It provides flexibility by allowing users to choose between Bash and PowerShell, catering to individual preferences and workflows. |
| AWS Systems Manager |
Azure Automation |
Azure Automation empowers users to configure and manage applications of varying scales and complexities. It provides pre-built templates for creating and managing collections of resources in a consistent and automated manner. |
| AWS CloudFormationAWS Cloud Development Kit |
Azure Resource ManagerBicep VM extensions Automation Azure Developer CLI |
These services furnish developers and cloud administrators with the tools to construct and deploy repeatable cloud environments. This is achieved through the use of declarative syntax or common programming languages to define infrastructure as code, promoting consistency and automation in deployments. |
Internet of Things (IoT) Services Compared
| AWS service |
Azure service |
Description |
| AWS IoT Core |
Azure IoT Hub |
This service acts as a cloud gateway, facilitating secure and scalable bidirectional communication with billions of IoT devices, enabling robust IoT deployments. |
| AWS IoT Greengrass |
Azure IoT Edge |
Azure IoT Edge allows you to deploy cloud intelligence directly onto IoT devices, catering to on-premises and edge computing scenarios, enabling local processing and reduced latency. |
| Amazon Data Firehose and Kinesis Data Streams |
Azure Event HubsAzure Stream Analytics |
These services are designed for high-volume ingestion of events or messages, typically originating from devices and sensors. The ingested data can then undergo real-time processing in micro-batches or be persisted to storage for subsequent in-depth analysis. Both Kinesis Data Streams and Stream Analytics offer real-time data processing capabilities, essential for time-sensitive IoT applications. |
| AWS IoT TwinMaker |
Azure Digital Twins |
Utilize these services to construct digital representations of real-world environments, objects, processes, and individuals. This enables you to derive valuable insights, drive the creation of enhanced products and novel customer experiences, and optimize operational efficiency and cost management through digital twin technology. |
| AWS IoT Device ManagementAWS IoT FleetWise |
Azure IoT Central |
Leverage these services to connect and manage IoT devices at scale effectively. Azure IoT Central caters to general IoT use cases as well as specific vehicle-centric applications. AWS provides IoT FleetWise, tailored specifically for vehicle-related IoT deployments. |
| AWS IoT ExpressLink |
Azure Sphere |
These services offer device modules and software components that streamline the development of custom internet-connected devices, simplifying the process of building secure and connected IoT solutions. |
Management and Governance Services Compared
| AWS service |
Azure service |
Description |
| AWS Organizations |
Azure management groups |
Azure management groups facilitate the organization of your resources and subscriptions into a hierarchical structure, simplifying governance and management at scale. |
| AWS Well-Architected Tool |
Azure Well-Architected Review |
Conduct comprehensive workload reviews through the prism of key pillars: reliability, cost optimization, operational excellence, security, and performance efficiency, ensuring best practices are followed. |
| AWS Trusted Advisor |
Azure Advisor |
Azure Advisor provides intelligent analysis of cloud resource configurations and security posture, offering actionable recommendations to align with best practices and achieve optimal configurations across your Azure environment. |
| AWS Billing and Cost Management |
Microsoft Cost Management |
Microsoft Cost Management empowers you to gain a clear understanding of your Azure invoices and billing statements. It also provides tools to manage billing accounts and subscriptions, effectively monitor and control Azure spending, and optimize resource utilization to minimize costs. |
| Cost and Usage Reports |
Cost details APIs |
These services enable you to generate, monitor, forecast, and share granular billing data related to resource consumption. Data can be segmented by time, organizational units, or specific product resources, providing detailed cost visibility. |
| AWS Management Console |
Azure portal |
The Azure portal serves as a unified management console, streamlining the processes of building, deploying, and operating your cloud resources within Azure through a user-friendly interface. |
| AWS Application Discovery Service |
Azure Migrate and Modernize |
Azure Migrate and Modernize assists in assessing on-premises workloads for migration to Azure. It performs performance-based sizing recommendations and provides detailed cost estimations to facilitate informed migration planning. |
| AWS Systems Manager |
Azure Monitor |
Azure Monitor is a comprehensive monitoring solution that allows you to collect, analyze, and act upon telemetry data from both cloud and on-premises environments, providing unified observability. |
| AWS Health Dashboard |
Azure Resource Health |
Gain access to detailed insights into the health status of your Azure resources. Azure Resource Health provides proactive recommendations and guidance on maintaining resource health and resolving potential issues. |
| AWS CloudTrail |
Activity log |
The Azure Activity Log is a platform log that provides invaluable insights into subscription-level events, such as resource modifications or virtual machine start-up events, enabling audit trails and security monitoring. |
| AWS Config |
Azure PolicyApplication change analysis |
Azure Policy empowers you to implement robust governance for resource consistency, regulatory compliance adherence, security enforcement, cost management, and overall management best practices. Utilize Azure Policy for bulk remediation of existing resources and automated remediation for newly provisioned resources. AWS Config is typically used for monitoring configuration changes and identifying and remediating non-compliant resources. |
| AWS Cost Explorer |
Cost Management |
Perform in-depth cost analysis and implement strategies to optimize cloud expenditure effectively using Azure Cost Management tools. |
| AWS Control Tower |
Azure Lighthouse |
Azure Lighthouse enables the setup and governance of multi-account or multi-subscription environments, simplifying management across complex Azure deployments, particularly for managed service providers (MSPs) and enterprises. |
| AWS Resource Groups and Tag Editor |
Resource Manager resource groups and tags |
A resource group in Azure acts as a container for logically grouping related resources for an Azure solution. Apply tags to your Azure resources to facilitate logical organization based on categories, departments, or projects, enhancing manageability and cost tracking. |
| AWS AppConfig |
Azure App Configuration |
Azure App Configuration is a managed service designed to help developers streamline and enhance the security of centralizing application settings and feature flags, promoting configuration management best practices. |
| AWS Service Catalog |
Azure Managed Applications |
Azure Managed Applications provides pre-packaged cloud solutions that customers can effortlessly deploy and operate, simplifying the adoption of complex applications and services. |
Authentication and Authorization Services Compared
| AWS service |
Azure service |
Description |
| AWS IAM Identity CenterAWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) |
Microsoft Entra ID |
Leverage these services to bolster security by controlling access to services and resources and enhancing data security and protection measures. Create and manage users and groups, and define granular permissions to allow or deny access to specific resources based on roles and policies. |
| AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) |
Azure role-based access control (RBAC) |
Azure RBAC empowers you to finely control who can access Azure resources, the specific resources they can access, and the actions they can perform on those resources, adhering to the principle of least privilege. |
| AWS Organizations |
Azure management groups |
These services extend security policy and role management capabilities when working with multiple accounts, enabling centralized security governance across complex organizational structures. |
| Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) for IAM |
Microsoft Entra ID |
Enhance security and safeguard access to sensitive data and applications by implementing multi-factor authentication, while maintaining a streamlined sign-in experience for users. |
| AWS Directory Service |
Microsoft Entra Domain Services |
Azure Domain Services provides managed domain services fully compatible with Windows Server Active Directory, including domain join, group policy application, LDAP, and Kerberos/NTLM authentication, simplifying migration and hybrid scenarios. |
| Amazon Cognito |
Microsoft Entra External ID |
External ID offers a highly available, globally distributed identity management service tailored for consumer-facing applications. It supports “bring your own identity” scenarios, enabling users to authenticate using existing identities from providers like Google or Meta. |
Encryption Services Compared
| AWS service |
Azure service |
Description |
| Server-side encryption with AWS Management Service |
Azure Storage service-side encryption |
Service-side encryption plays a critical role in protecting your data at rest and meeting stringent organizational security and compliance mandates by automatically encrypting data stored within the respective cloud platforms. |
| AWS Key Management Service (KMS), AWS CloudHSM |
Azure Key Vault Azure Key Vault Managed HSM |
Enhance security and streamline integration with other Azure services by utilizing Azure Key Vault to securely manage, create, and control encryption keys. Keys are stored within hardware security modules (HSMs). Key Vault offers both shared and dedicated HSM options. AWS KMS utilizes a shared HSM, while CloudHSM provides a dedicated HSM. Both platforms offer Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS)-validated options for compliance-sensitive workloads. |
| AWS Nitro Enclaves |
Azure confidential computing |
Azure confidential computing provides advanced platforms with enhanced controls to protect data while it is being processed in memory. It also offers remote platform attestation capabilities to verify trustworthiness. Azure’s confidential computing portfolio includes Azure SQL Always Encrypted and confidential VMs for Azure Virtual Desktop, Azure Data Explorer, and Azure Databricks, catering to diverse confidential workloads. |
Firewall Services Compared
| AWS service |
Azure service |
Description |
| AWS WAF |
Azure web application firewall |
These web application firewalls (WAFs) are designed to bolster the security of web applications by mitigating common web exploits and vulnerabilities, protecting against OWASP top 10 threats. |
| AWS Network Firewall |
Azure Firewall |
These network firewall services enhance both inbound and outbound network-level protection across all ports and protocols. Both solutions offer the capability to inspect and enforce rules on encrypted web traffic, providing deep packet inspection and threat prevention. |
Security Services Compared
| AWS service |
Azure service |
Description |
| Amazon Inspector |
Microsoft Defender for Cloud |
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is an automated security assessment service that proactively enhances the security and compliance posture of applications and workloads. It automatically assesses applications for known vulnerabilities and deviations from security best practices, providing actionable security recommendations. |
| AWS Certificate Manager |
Key Vault certificates Microsoft Cloud PKI |
Utilize these services to streamline the creation and management of digital certificates and their associated cryptographic keys, simplifying TLS/SSL certificate lifecycle management. |
| Amazon GuardDuty |
Microsoft Sentinel |
Detect and investigate advanced threats and sophisticated attacks targeting both on-premises and cloud environments with these security information and event management (SIEM) and security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR) solutions. |
| AWS Artifact |
Microsoft Service Trust Portal |
Access comprehensive audit reports, compliance guides, and trust-related documentation spanning across various cloud services through these central repositories, facilitating compliance and risk assessment. |
| AWS Shield |
Azure DDoS Protection |
Enhance the resilience of cloud services against distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks with these dedicated DDoS protection services, mitigating potential service disruptions and ensuring business continuity. |
Web Application Services Compared
| AWS service |
Azure service |
Description |
| AWS Elastic Beanstalk |
Azure App Service |
Azure App Service is a fully managed hosting platform that offers user-friendly services for deploying and scaling web applications and services, supporting various programming languages and frameworks. |
| Amazon API Gateway |
Azure API Management |
These services provide turnkey solutions for publishing APIs to both internal and external consumers, offering features like API security, rate limiting, and analytics. |
| Amazon CloudFront |
Azure Front Door |
Azure Front Door is a modern cloud content delivery network (CDN) service engineered to deliver high performance, scalability, and enhanced security for your content and applications, accelerating content delivery globally. |
| AWS Global Accelerator |
Azure Front Door |
Seamlessly integrate distributed microservices architectures into a unified global application utilizing HTTP load balancing and path-based routing rules. Automate the deployment of new regions and achieve horizontal scaling through API-driven global actions and independent fault-tolerance to your back-end microservices hosted in Azure or elsewhere. |
| AWS Global Accelerator |
Cross-regional load balancer |
Distribute and load balance traffic across multiple Azure regions using a single, static, global anycast public IP address, enhancing application availability and resilience. |
| Amazon Lightsail |
App Service |
Build, deploy, and scale web applications on a fully managed platform with Azure App Service, simplifying web hosting and application management. |
| AWS App Runner |
Web App for Containers |
Easily deploy and run containerized web applications on both Windows and Linux environments with Azure Web App for Containers, streamlining containerized application deployment. |
| AWS Amplify |
Static Web Apps |
Azure Static Web Apps enhances developer productivity by offering a tailored developer experience, integrated CI/CD workflows for building and deploying static content hosting, and dynamic scaling for integrated serverless APIs, optimizing static web application development and hosting. |
End-User Computing Services Compared
| AWS service |
Azure service |
Description |
| Amazon WorkSpaces Family, Amazon AppStream 2.0 |
Azure Virtual Desktop |
Manage virtual desktops and applications to provide users with secure access to corporate networks and data anytime, anywhere, across supported devices. WorkSpaces Family supports both Windows and Linux virtual desktops. Azure Virtual Desktop supports single and multi-session Windows virtual desktops, offering flexibility in virtual desktop deployments. |
Miscellaneous Service Area Comparisons
| Area |
AWS service |
Azure service |
Description |
| Back-end process logic |
AWS Step Functions |
Azure Logic Apps |
Utilize these cloud technologies to construct distributed applications leveraging pre-built connectors, minimizing integration complexities. Connect applications, data sources, and devices both on-premises and in the cloud, enabling seamless workflow automation. |
| Enterprise application services |
Amazon WorkMail, Amazon WorkDocs (deprecated), Amazon Chime |
Microsoft 365 |
These fully integrated cloud services offer comprehensive communication, email, and document management capabilities in the cloud, accessible across a wide range of devices, enhancing collaboration and productivity. |
| Gaming |
Amazon GameLift |
Microsoft Azure PlayFab |
These managed services provide hosting for dedicated game servers, simplifying the infrastructure management for online multiplayer games. |
| Workflow |
AWS Step Functions |
Logic Apps |
Leverage this serverless technology to connect applications, data, and devices irrespective of location, including on-premises or cloud environments, for extensive ecosystems of SaaS and cloud-based connectors, facilitating complex workflow automation. |
| Hybrid |
AWS Outposts Family |
Azure ArcAzure Local |
Extend your cloud datacenter to the network edge using platforms that integrate hardware and software, such as AWS Outposts and Azure Local. Utilize Azure Arc to broaden Azure management capabilities to on-premises or multi-cloud environments, enabling consistent management across hybrid deployments. |
| Media |
Amazon Elastic Transcoder AWS Elemental MediaConvert |
None |
Azure does not offer native media services. However, a range of recommended partner solutions are available to address media processing and delivery needs within Azure. |
| Satellite |
AWS Ground Station |
None |
Microsoft does not provide fully managed ground station services. For access to global environmental data provided by Microsoft, explore Microsoft Planetary Computer. Alternatively, you can utilize data provided by NASA for satellite-related data needs. |
| Quantum computing |
Amazon Braket |
Azure Quantum |
Developers, researchers, and businesses can leverage these managed quantum computing services to execute quantum computing programs, exploring the potential of quantum algorithms and applications. |
| Data sharing |
AWS Data Exchange |
Azure Data Share |
Securely share data with external organizations using these data sharing services, facilitating collaboration and data monetization opportunities. |
| Contact center |
Amazon Connect |
Dynamics 365 Contact Center |
Enhance customer engagement by leveraging these AI-powered cloud contact center capabilities, providing intelligent and personalized customer experiences. |
Next Steps for AWS Professionals Learning Azure
Azure and AWS accounts and subscriptions
