Close
  • Latest News
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Networking
  • Cybersecurity
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Storage
  • Sponsored
  • Mobile
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
Read Down
Sign in
Close
Welcome!Log into your account
Forgot your password?
Read Down
Password recovery
Recover your password
Close
Search
Logo
Logo
  • Latest News
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Networking
  • Cybersecurity
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Storage
  • Sponsored
  • Mobile
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
More
    Home Applications
    • Applications
    • Development
    • IT Management
    • Networking
    • PC Hardware

    Google vs. Amazon Web Services

    By
    Clint Boulton
    -
    April 11, 2008
    Share
    Facebook
    Twitter
    Linkedin

      A lot has been made this week of the beta launch of Google App Engine, a piece of software that lets users run applications on top of a company’s own Web infrastructure.

      But what’s inside the platform and how is it different from the more mature AWS (Amazon Web Services) platform? Essentially, application developers will be able to harvest the same tools and building blocks Google uses for its own applications.

      Google App Engine offers dynamic Web serving, storage through Google’s Bigtable database system running on its GFS file system, automatic scaling and load balancing, said William Fellows, an analyst with The 451 Group who examined the Google App Engine in a research report April 10.

      Programmers’ applications, which must be written in Python for Windows, Linux or Mac OS X, will leverage Google APIs for authenticating users and sending e-mail. Moreover, they will run in Google’s Apps stack.

      Amazon.com declined to comment about Google App Engine, but Fellows noted that a core difference between AWS and the App Engine is that AWS employs a loosely coupled architecture. Specifically, developers don’t have to use Amazon.com’s Elastic Compute Cloud, Simple Storage Server or SimpleDB together, while the App Engine is more of an all or nothing approach.

      “The developer must be willing to run its entire stack on it; i.e., hand Google a URL along with their code, and trust Google to do everything else,” Fellows said. “Unlike AWS, it isn’t a virtual machine provider and doesn’t give the user a raw virtual machine.”

      Google Gets Closer to Businesses

      What this does is empower Google with another form of control. Businesses will get an entr??«e into a world of building Web applications they normally wouldn’t have the bandwidth for; Google will get to know the companies, getting the skinny on whether they’re a purchase fit.

      The inflexibility is a good thing for application availability, said AdventNet CEO Sridhar Vembu, whose company owns the Zoho SAAS (software as a service) unit that competes with Google Apps.

      Vembu said EC2 can host any Linux binary image that can include any kind of program written in any language available on Linux, providing great flexibility with a caveat: “If your program goes into an infinite loop and occupies 100 percent of its virtual CPU, AWS will simply let it burn up the CPU-hours.”

      App Engine meanwhile is basically a hosted middleware framework that imposes specific constraints on the kinds of program that can run on the service. The Google App Engine will run short-running Web applications but not stand-alone programs using multiple threads, such as Web crawlers.

      “The flexibility lost by the developer comes with a huge benefit,” Vembu wrote in a blog post April 10. “Because of the constraints imposed by the middleware framework, Google can make much stronger guarantees of your application availability than Amazon can.”

      Google App Engine or AWS?

      So, should a business pick AWS or Google App Engine, or something more familiar? Some feel that these nouveau Internet companies have a ways to go before challenging the old guard of business computing.

      In response to an April 7 eWEEK story on the Google App Engine, an anonymous reader whose company has used business services from Google and Amazon said Google is not so much challenging Amazon.com as the entrenched companies like IBM that have been providing data storage and application hosting for decades.

      “With IBM you get to talk to a person,” the reader wrote. “With Google and with Amazon the interaction is via e-mail with Tier 1 support personnel and not at all suited for ‘mission-critical’ applications. Reported problems take days to even receive a response, much less for action to be initiated by technical staff.

      “These new services may be priced to be attractive to the CFO but heaven help the CIO that puts critical applications in the hands of either company,” the reader added.

      Whether or not Google or Amazon.com will address those issues is a question for the future. And it will be interesting to see what Microsoft brings to the table with the Dryad parallel computing system and its SQL Server Database Services in 2008.

      Clint Boulton

      MOST POPULAR ARTICLES

      Android

      Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro: Durability for Tough...

      Chris Preimesberger - December 5, 2020 0
      Have you ever dropped your phone, winced and felt the pain as it hit the sidewalk? Either the screen splintered like a windshield being...
      Read more
      Cybersecurity

      Visa’s Michael Jabbara on Cybersecurity and Digital...

      James Maguire - May 17, 2022 0
      I spoke with Michael Jabbara, VP and Global Head of Fraud Services at Visa, about the cybersecurity technology used to ensure the safe transfer...
      Read more
      Cloud

      Why Data Security Will Face Even Harsher...

      Chris Preimesberger - December 1, 2020 0
      Who would know more about details of the hacking process than an actual former career hacker? And who wants to understand all they can...
      Read more
      Cloud

      Yotascale CEO Asim Razzaq on Controlling Multicloud...

      James Maguire - May 5, 2022 0
      Asim Razzaq, CEO of Yotascale, provides guidance on understanding—and containing—the complex cost structure of multicloud computing. Among the topics we covered:  As you survey the...
      Read more
      Big Data and Analytics

      GoodData CEO Roman Stanek on Business Intelligence...

      James Maguire - May 4, 2022 0
      I spoke with Roman Stanek, CEO of GoodData, about business intelligence, data as a service, and the frustration that many executives have with data...
      Read more
      Logo

      eWeek has the latest technology news and analysis, buying guides, and product reviews for IT professionals and technology buyers. The site’s focus is on innovative solutions and covering in-depth technical content. eWeek stays on the cutting edge of technology news and IT trends through interviews and expert analysis. Gain insight from top innovators and thought leaders in the fields of IT, business, enterprise software, startups, and more.

      Facebook
      Linkedin
      RSS
      Twitter
      Youtube

      Advertisers

      Advertise with TechnologyAdvice on eWeek and our other IT-focused platforms.

      Advertise with Us

      Menu

      • About eWeek
      • Subscribe to our Newsletter
      • Latest News

      Our Brands

      • Privacy Policy
      • Terms
      • About
      • Contact
      • Advertise
      • Sitemap
      • California – Do Not Sell My Information

      Property of TechnologyAdvice.
      © 2021 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved

      Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.

      ×