Azure Blob Storage vs Google Cloud Storage – Which is Better? There is huge amount of data being saved by businesses every year. Importantly the companies are moving away from traditional on premise servers and are moving into cloud storage solutions.
Below we will talk about Azure Blob Storage vs Google Cloud Storage. Both of these solutions are used to store data in the cloud. The first one, Azure Blob Storage, is safe to use, scales very well, is durable and is redundant as well as highly available. On the other hand, Google Cloud Storage can accommodate large unstructured datasets.
In this article, I’ll explain what these two data storage platforms are and what they are used for. In addition, I will mention their benefits as well as advantages and disadvantages. At the end, I will do a comparison of both and possibly suggest the best one.
Shall we start with Azure Blob Storage vs Google Cloud Storage – Which is Better?
What is Azure Blob Storage?
Additionally its blob storage allows companies using its services to securely record huge amounts of data and store them on Microsoft Azure accounts. What’s more, it is economical, convenient to use and has a highly scaled method. Namely it records and stores data in the cloud.
What is Azure Blob Storage used for?
The following points illustrate a usage scenario:
- Video and audio transmission storage.
- Data storage for backup, restore, disaster recovery and archiving.
- Also storing data for analytics on premise or Azure hosted services.
- View photos or documents directly in the browser.
- Write log files.
- Stores Files for distributed access.
How does BLOB storage work?
Blob storage consists of three different types of resources and those aee:
- Inventory account.
- Containers to the inventory account.
- Stains in containers.
Benefits of using Azure Blob Storage
Good Consistency – most of all any changes made to the object are updated immediately. This in return ensures that the latest version is available to access the data, providing excellent data integrity.
Object Mutability – secondly the ability to modify specific data objects reduces bandwidth consumption and improves overall performance.
Multiple Blob Types – thirdly choosing from bullet blocks and adding large blocks and large bullets to pages gives more flexibility to meet specific needs.
Security – fourthly the key mode is used to authenticate users to Azure Active Directory. In return it makes it difficult for hackers to gain access to information. Moreover restricted data access with a shared access signature (SAS) as well as storage integration with Microsoft Defender keeps it most secure.
Geo Redundancy – here the Geo replication capabilities enhance local and global reach to maximize business continuity.
Pros and cons of Azure Blob Storage
Pros
- Pretty good prices – (~$0.018/GB/month). Archiving prices are among the lowest in the industry (~$0.002/GB/month).
- Downloading course materials is completely free- great deal if you download files frequently.
- Once you sign up, you’ll get $200 towards Microsoft Azure services – (within 30 days) and 12 months of specified services.
- Variety of different Storage options depending on your needs – Blob, Archive, Queue, File or Disk.
- Well put documentation and quite easy to use. It’s not as comprehensive as Amazon AWS, but it’s good enough to build around the API.
Cons
- All the different storage options can get confusing. For example, it is difficult for a beginner to know when to use Blob service instead of File service. In my opinion, Amazon AWS and Google Cloud Storage do a better job of explaining and simplifying the product.
- In order to get direct support you need to purchase a support plan starting from 29 USD per month.
Up next with Azure Blob Storage vs Google Cloud Storage is to introduce Google Cloud Storage.Â
What is Google Cloud Storage?
Second tool in our comparison is Google Cloud Storage. First of all it is a part of Google Cloud Platform and designed to be a competitor to Amazon S3 and Amazon Web Services (AWS). Also comparative with other big names in the market like Microsoft. Primarily it focuses on developing and deploying modern web applications.
Additionally Google Cloud provides object storage with no restrictions on the amount of data stored or the size of objects. Interestingly Google promises low latency and high durability for its services. Moreover data can be stored anywhere in the world. Additionally, it can be accessed from the command line or through a web browser.
What does Google Cloud Storage do?
Particularly Google Cloud is an online file storage network service for storing and accessing your data using the Google Cloud Platform infrastructure. Afterwards it provides bulk storage that is universal, scalable and highly durable.
Markedly it is one of the largest public cloud storage systems in the world, along with Amazon, Microsoft, IBM and Oracle. Besides it provides unified object storage for enterprises and developers.
Specifically Google Cloud is aimed directly at developers and businesses. Basically the tool has storage tiers so you can decide which pricing model works best for your data. These tiers include Standard, Nearline, Coldline, and Archive. They differ in how often you need to access your data and how fast and durable you need to store it.
Not to be confused with Google Cloud. Google One is consumer cloud storage that includes Google Drive, Gmail, and Google Photos.
Benefits of using Google Cloud Storage
- Easy to Adopt Latest Functionalities – Changes to the platform are small and incremental, giving users time to adapt.
- High Productivity with Innovation- With Google updating the platform every week, your productivity will constantly increase.
- Unmatched Security – Quite simply Google is a name associated with security. So its cloud counterpart is a prime example.
- High Reliability – In the event of a power outage in the operation of the data center, the system will be transferred to the secondary center without interruption to users.
- Offers Flexibility and Control – You can choose the technology and control the data in the Google app. If you unsubscribe from the service, your data can be easily extracted.
- Reduced Breaches- As the platform allows minimal storage of offline data, the chances of breach significantly drop.
- Smooth Collaboration- Generally Google Cloud smoothens the collaboration aspect of a project by allowing simultaneous contribution and access.
Pros and cons of Google Cloud Storage
Pros
- Seamlessly integrated with your Android.Â
- There’s no implementation process.
- Moreover Google Cloud Storage is very convenient to use.
- Simply put access your data anywhere.
- Many regions available to store your data – North America, South America, Europe, Asia and Australia.
- Easy to integrate with other Google Cloud Services such as Kubernetes Engine, App Engine or Compute Engine.
- One of the best free options in the industry- Free $300 credit to start using any Google Cloud Platform product in the first year. After that, 5GB of storage is free forever.
Cons
- The API SDK doesn’t seem to be as stable as Amazon S3- I found many examples of stack overflow that no longer work.
- Support costs are too high- Basic service (silver) is about $150 per month.
- I found the Google Cloud Platform web interface a bit confusing. Sometimes I get lost navigating the menus.
- Downloading data from Google Cloud Storage is expensive. $0.12 per GB.
- The platform as a service model can make it difficult to migrate outside of GCloud.
Now with Azure Blob Storage vs Google Cloud Storage is time for our comparison.
Azure Blob Storage vs Google Cloud Storage - Comparison
As you can see from the table below Microsoft Azure has several data centers around the world. Thanks to that you get more options, compatibility and flexibility. On the other side, Google Cloud Storage also offers significant global reach, particularly in North America, Europe and Asia/Oceania.
Both products offer S3 compatible storage, allowing you to access and manage your stored data through a compatible interface.
Also, these deals offer more than 99% SLA. This means that both solutions claim almost constant uptime (less than 6 minutes of downtime per year).
| Accessibility | Azure Blob Storage | Google Cloud Storage |
|---|---|---|
|
Regions |
56 Regions |
24 Regions |
|
Access API |
S3 Compatible (Using a S3 proxy) |
S3 Compatible |
|
Availability SLA |
99.95% |
99.9% |
Persistent Disk Storage
Here the Azure offers Ultra Disk SSDs up to 2 GB/s, 1.6 million IOPS. Alternatively offers the cheapest price/performance for HDD/SSD.
Data Transfer
Another key point is persistent disk storage. From one side Azure provides command line tools for data transfer and physical drive shipping options. But Google provides API and console access and allows you to schedule data transfer tasks.
Object Storage
In this instance of object storage Azure provides REST API, PowerShell and CLI access. What is more with Google it improves price/performance through object lifecycle management.
File Storage
Besides we have file storage comparison. With Azure you can access to files using the standard SMB protocol. Oppositely Google offers NAS access and integrates with GKE.
Cold Storage
Another key point is cold storage. On one side Azure provides hot, cold and archive access tiers. Contrarily to Google that offers cold storage with response times in seconds.
Return on investment
Your investment with Azure definitely allows you to store files securely. Additionally it lets you store files in a cheaper way than those on the site. More benefit is that it allows to easily transfer files using HTTPS.
Return on investment
Above all what could be improved is employees understanding of the best way to use Google Cloud Storage. So training videos or tutorials are most advisable. In addition Google Cloud Storage helps us to share documents/information. In particular, in our advertising team, we can store a lot of information to help new employees and update existing employees. Overall I must say Google Storage is great overall. It would be difficult to find a similar storage product that had the same enterprise level capabilities.
Support available
Comparatively with support available with Azure it seems that sometimes the documentation is not up to date or not well documented for newer versions. Seems like the documentation is published for a particular version and but it quickly becomes outdated. Another problem is that the new version has no documentation and seems to be updated properly (and sometimes still incorrectly) after enough people visit the forums to complain.
Support available
Oppositely but strictly speaking we have never used Google’s official support for Google Cloud Storage. But extensive documentation is already available. With a bit of work, anyone can get started. When the requirements get more complex, there’s always Google documentation, and there’s also plenty of community support for common use cases on the web.
Thank you for reading Azure Blob Storage vs Google Cloud Storage – Which is Better ? We shall conclude.
Azure Blob Storage vs Google Cloud Storage – Which is Better ? Conclusion
To sum up Azure Blob Storage is useful when working with different data formats and looking for a cost effective storage solution based on access frequency. Another area of ​​strength is data at rest encryption, which can be controlled by itself. However, transferring large data very quickly may not be suitable.
On the other side is Google Cloud Storage. Clearly a great tool for storing and playing large video files. Even sharing them securely with others, whether they belong to your organization or not. Video files do not need to be downloaded before playing and can be used to save other types of files as well. It is a big plus.
Quite clearly both of these data storage services have different advantages and disadvantages. Choosing the right cloud platform is entirely dependent on your organization’s requirements.
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Azure blob is the best, and tolls like Gs Richcopy 360 and Synback make moving files to it easier