Cloud Computing Services – A comparison

Abstract

Recognized as one of the Top 10 technologies of 2010 by Gartner, Computing has generated a lot of interest and competition in the industry. With the emergence of new Cloud Providers, identifying one that best suits the business needs of an enterprise is a challenging and difficult task.

Adopting a Cloud Provider requires a detailed study of parameters like data security, SLA’s and options that address the reduction of capital expenditure. In this White paper, Torry Harris Business Solutions carries out a high level comparison of the significant features delivered by key public cloud providers of the industry and key considerations that enterprises need to take into account while they embark on .

An Overview

While there are many benefits of adopting the infrastructure, platforms & services offered by a Cloud Service provider, the applicability of these would depend on the nature & size of an enterprise. With an ever-growing list of cloud computing service providers , the decision for enterprises on how far to leverage computing platforms and with whom is a complex one.

Each of the Cloud providers have their own set of pricing, billing, flexibility, support and other important parameters in their model of computing the service.

The key considerations dealt in this White paper are from the perspective of Providers and vendors of Cloud Computing Services.

Choosing a Cloud provider

?

Figure 1: Key Cloud providers

The approach of choosing a cloud provider is a calculated and strategic one, which involves the analysis of who-provides -what. Some of the common questions that would surface while choosing a provider are mentioned below.

How is a service outage defined?

How is the customer credited or compensated for an outage? Is there an incident-reporting system? Are access /us age reports available?

Is the data backed up — and if s o, where are the backups stored?

What happens to copies of the data if the relationship is terminated, or if the vendor fails? How do you extricate yours elf from the relationship if there is a dispute? How safe is the data?

What level of account access is present and how is access controlled?

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What is the billing model?

Are there add on cost or fees for support?

Are charges based upon traffic, us age or storage limits?

The nature of cloud providers that are considered for the comparison in this white paper are as follows:

Iaas (Infrastructure ) – services catering to the hardware, data storage, networking and bandwidth.

Paas () – services catering to and development tools.

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Cloud Providers – A comparison table

The following table captures the comparison of significant features offered by key public cloud providers of the industry

Amazon AWS App Engine Windows Azure Force.com Racks pace GoGrid

Cloud Paas Paas Paas Paas Iaas Iaas Services Iaas Iaas Features

Platforms Operating systems Runtime Operating systems Software Operating systems Operating systems supported Red Hat Enterprise Java Runtime Environment Windows 7 Unlimited real-time Linux Windows server 2008 database customizations Windows Server Python Runtime Environment Windows Server 2008 Mac OS X Windows server 2003 Programmable user 2003/2008/2012 Go Runtime Environment Windows Vista Windows Cent OS 5.1 interface. Oracle Enterprise Linux System Center 2012 Software Features Programmable cloud logic Cent OS 5.3 Hadoop OpenSolaris Integration with Google Windows Intune Redhat Linux 5.1 Real-time workflow and Account s OpenSUSE Linux Windows Azure approvals Redhat Linux 5.4 URL Fetch Ubuntu Linux Real-time web sites Software Mail Software Fedora Gent oo Linux Real-time mobile Hadoop Memcache deployment Debian Hadoop Image Manipulation Integrated content library CentOS

Scheduled T asks and T ask Real-time analytics Amazon. -Linux Queues Granular security and SUSE Linux. XMP P sharing

FreeBSD Blobstore (which supports Hadoop object s up to 50MB in size) Software Cloud SQL IBM DB2 IBM Informix Dynamic Software Server External software like AppServers Databases cannot be installed SQL Server

Standard 2005 Hadoop MySQL Enterprise

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Amazon AWS Windows Azure Force.com Racks pace GoGrid Condor

Open MP I Apache HTTP IIS/Asp.Net IBM Lot us Web Content Management

IBM WebSphere Portal Server IBM sMash

JBoss Enterprise Application P lat form Ruby on Rails

IBM WebSphere Application Server

Java Application Server Oracle WebLogic Wowza Media Server P ro

Windows Media Server Zeus soft ware Oracle Database 11g Hadoop

Languages Any Java VB.NET Apex . Net Java

Supported Python C# Java Python P HP

Go P HP VB.Net P HP Perl

BASIC Perl Java C#

JAVA P HP Ruby Python

Python Python Ruby

.NET Ruby

Node.js Windows language including VBA

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Amazon AWS Google App Engine Windows Azure Force.com Racks pace GoGrid s-controls and t he AJAX Toolkit Cloud Amazon CloudWatch API Google Secure Data Connector Windows Azure P lat form Apex Language Code Beanstalk – Hassle-free GoGrid's Cloudcont Tools T raining Kit Edit or Subversion Hosting rol Command Line services Private gadget s Tool and tools Auto Scaling AP I Tools Windows Azure Soft ware Enhanced Metadata Attachment fu in Ruby Google Visualization AP I Development Kit Support Cloud Wizard's Open Elastic Load Balancing AP I Cloudvox Google Apps AP Is Source Cross Cloud Tools Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Upgrade Wizard Nautilus Cloud Files Scripting Language Google web toolkit Service Pack 1 Mobile SDK (Native, Plug-in by Chmouel AWS Toolkit for Eclipse Mitch Denny's IDE support Windows Azure plat form HTML5, Hybrid) Boudjnah AWS Management Console Windows PowerShell AppFabric SDK V1.0 Chatter API Paperclip-Cloudfiles Snap-in Amazon EC2 API Tools Windows 7 T raining Kit For Visualforce Developers Olark Live Website Chat .NET API SDK Amazon EC2 AMI Tools Framework

Vanilla – Free Forum Elasticfox Firefox Extension Mobile SDK (Windows Phone 8 Force.com IDE Hosting for Amazon EC2 Android, iOS) Force.com Migration

JavaScript Scratchpad for Tool Soft ware Service Bus EAI and EDI Labs Amazon EC2 Development Kit for Java, SDK PHP, Python. Authentication Tool for Curl

CloudBerry Explorer for Amazon S3 and CloudFront Manager for Amazon CloudFront

Firefox Organizer for Amazon S3 and Amazon CloudFront (S3Fox)

AWSzone.com JavaScript Scratchpad for Amazon SQS

Amazon Mechanical Turk Developer Sandbox

Amazon Mechanical Turk Command Line Tools

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Amazon AWS Google App Engine Windows Azure Force.com Racks pace GoGrid LogAnalyzer for Amazon CloudFront

CloudBerry Explorer for Amazon S3 and CloudFront

Amazon CloudFront Authentication Tool for Curl Firefox Organizer for Amazon S3 and Amazon CloudFront (S3Fox) Manager for Amazon CloudFront

Amazon Elastic MapReduce Ruby Client

Amazon RDS Command Line Toolkit JavaScript Scratchpad for Amazon FWS Out bound

JavaScript Scratchpad for Amazon FWS Inbound

Mobile SDK (Android, iOS)

Elastic Beanstalk API

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Amazon AWS Google App Engine Window Azure Force.com Rack Space Go Grid Iaas

Integrated MySql GAE doesn't support external Sql azure Not applicable MySQL, Microsoft SQL MSSQL 2008 DB databases ; it provides a data Oracle Workgroup (64-bit) - store of it s own which can be Microsoft SQL Server supported accessed through standard JDO Workgroup Edit ion 2008 and JPA AP Is. MSSQL 2008 Standard (64-bit ) - Microsoft SQL Server Standard 2008 MSSQL 2005 Standard (32-bit ) - Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Standard Edit ion MSSQL 2005 Workgroup (32-bit) - Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Workgroup Edit ion

Maximum Amazon S3 Automatic scaling is built in Blobs: There are two types of blobs In t he unlimited edit ion, Infinite scalability Horizontal server that can be stored in Windows Azure limits -No limit on the number of wit h App Engine scaling—use a GSI t o objects stored in a bucket. Storage, block and page blobs. Number of sites - 25 rapidly deploy new No mat tar how many users you A single block blob can be up to -Each AWS account can own [Features available more for servers t o meet sudden have or how much data your 200GB in size. up to 100 buckets at a time. additional fee] spikes in demand. Delete e application stores, App Engine t he servers when demand Amazon EC2 [Elastic Block can scale t o meet your needs Page blobs, can be up to 1TB in 2,000 Database objects total drops, paying only for the storage] - Volume sizes size resources used. ranging from 1GB t o 1TB storage - 120MB/user A single storage account can AP I calls/day - 5,000/user, 5 (20 T B/account limit while contain up to 100TB of blobs. million total Vertical server scaling— in bet a) scale RAM by deploying P age views/month - 1,000,000 a GSI t o a new server [Features wit h rolling 24 -hour with a higher RAM time period] allotment and t hen deleting t he old server Sites bandwidth/day - 40GB with insufficient RAM.

Sites page generation time/day Server Parking—bundle [Rolling 24-hour time period] - and park a server in

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GoGrid's 60 server hours for only $0.15 -- $3.00/month. This is ideal for users t hat don't want t o pay for an entire month of service for a server used only a few days per month.

Support for Amazon Mechanical Turk Not available Not available Not available Not available Not available human-only tasks

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Amazon AWS Google App Engine Window Azure Force.com Rack Space Go Grid

Support

Amazon S3 - available with 100% Uptime 99.9% Uptime 99.9+ percent uptime 100% Net work Uptime 100% Uptime , which Service Level a Monthly Uptime Guarantee means Percentage of at least 99.9% Agreements during any monthly billing 1-Hour Hardware Net work Out age: None Replacement Guarantee availability cycle P acket loss < 0.1% 2-Hour Commencement of Amazon EC2 - available Latency < 5ms with an Annual Uptime Onsite Data Restores Percentage of at least Jitter < 0.5ms

99.95% during t he Service Maximum Jitter: 10 Year milliseconds within any 15-minute period.

Support Premium Support - Silver Free Support is available Developer support is charged on a Basic Support , Premier Support, 24x7x365 Live Support & FREE 24/7 P hone and Gold support available 24x7x365 from on-site cloud per incident basis. However, you Premier Support wit h Expertise [Pricing details not Support Pricing and are charged accordingly hosting experts are able t o utilize support incidents t Administration. Developer mentioned in t he website] Policy hat you already have from Support is only available for a Free 24/7 Premium existing programs such as t he fee, on a per-case basis. Support Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) and t he Microsoft Partner Net work (MPN).

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Amazon AWS Google App Engine Window Azure Force.com Rack Space Go Grid

Support Se verity level vs response time Not available Not available Support type vs response time 24 x 7 x 365 online live chat EMERGENCY Cases - 30 and toll free phone support minutes response Urgent - 1 hour (available Basic Support - 2 business backed by Fanatical Support time for Gold subscribers only) days T he following are t he EMERGENCY categories: High - 4 business hours Premier Support - 2 hours Server down Normal - 1 business day Premier Support wit h Administration - 2 hours Packet loss Low - 2 business days Routing issue All other Cases - 120 minutes

Service Monthly u p-time percentage vs Not available Microsoft will provide a 10 percent Not available Not available A "10,000% Service Credit Service credit percentage credit if compute connectivity falls " is a credit equivalent t o credit for below 99.95 percent uptime; a 10 one hundred (100) times an outage Amazon S 3 percent credit if role-instance Customer's fees for t he Equal t o or greater than 99% but uptime or storage falls below 99.9 impacted Service feature less than 99.9% - 10% percent uptime. If it falls below 99 for the duration of percent availability across anything, t he Failure less than 99% - 25% 25 percent credit will be provided Amazon EC 2 If t he Annual Uptime Percentage for a customer drops below 99.95% for t he Service Year, t hat customer is eligible t o receive a Service Credit equal t o 10% of t heir bill (excluding one-time payments made for Reserved Instances) for t he Eligible Credit Period

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Amazon AWS Google App Engine Window Azure Force.com Rack Space Go Grid

Incidence publishes t T he user should subscribe t o t his Microsoft may send periodic e-mails T rust Sit e -t rust..Com-for Incident reports are mostly Not available he most up-to-the-minute announcement-only list t o receive informing you of technical service Incident Communications proprietary information between notification information on service availability updates on system out ages, issues related t o a product or service us and Rackspace customers approach in Service Health Dashboard maintenance periods, and other you requested services disrupt ions. Amazon Web Services keeps a running log of all service Go t o t he group: google-appengine- interruptions downtime-notify

Subscribe via email: google- appengine-downtime-notify- [email protected]

Apart from the above, when t here is a scheduled down time, GAE put s t he data store in read-only mode. During t hat time any attempt t o writ e data to t he data store will throw an except ion which can be caught in the application t o show a user friendly message t o t he user

Access Amazon Cloudwatch T he Administrative console provides "Dallas" Features allows users t o get Force.com Sites Usage Reporting T he Control GoGrid CDN (Content t he following details, detailed access report containing t he Package gives you reports and a Panel provides specific usage Delivery Network) /usage services/data assets that were accessed, dashboard t o analyze usage of t he metrics provides, view access data and error logs, and reports grouped by date and by account key Force.com Sites analyze traffic Basic Reporting P ort al health check reports show browse t he application's data store sensitive administrative and user Advanced Reporting and and manage indexes Analytics permissions, object permissions, view t he stat us of t he application's field-level security, organization- Real-Time Reporting scheduled t asks wide default settings, and custom Dashboard sharing rules

Community ht t p://aws.t ypepad.com ht t p://code.google.com/ ht t p://blogs.technet.com/microsoft_ ht t p://sit es.force.com/blogs/ ht t p://www.rackspace.com/ ht t p://blog.gogrid.com/ appengine/community.html blog/archive/tags/Azure/default.aspx ideaHome?c=09a30000000D9xo blog/ News /Blogs

ht t p://googleappengine.blogspot.com

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Amazon AWS Google App Engine Window Azure Force.com Rack Space Go Grid Pricing

Service/Res An efficient application on a free Cloud Server (virtual instance) Resources t hat are charged are Amazon S 3 - Storage Used / Data Billing is based on Compute, Storage, Force.com Free, Force.com pricing account can use up t o 1GB of by t he hour bandwidth In and Storage transactions and Data transfers Enterprise, Force.com Unlimited Transfer In or Data Transfer storage and up t o 5 million page Bandwidth Out ,Amount of data for t he RAM usage and data Out /P UT, COPY, POST, LIST or views a month. When you are ready backed up, Additional public IP transfer from t he server t o t he GET request (No charge for delete for more, you can enable billing, set a addresses . Each account has the requests) maximum daily budget , and allocate ability t o deploy up t o 200 Amazon SimpleDB - measures t he your budget for each servers machine utilization of each request resource according t o your needs. Cloud Storage billing and charges based on t he amount of begins after you exceed t Billing is based on t he following machine capacity used t o complete he initial parameters – the particular request (SELECT , GET 10GB storage quota , P UT, etc.), normalized t o t he hourly Outgoing Bandwidth, Incoming capacity of a circa 2007 1.7 GHz Bandwidth, CPU Time, CPUStored Xeon processor Data Recipient s Emailed. Amazon CloudFront - Charged based on t he amount of data transfer out and t he number of GET request s

Amazon Elastic MapReduce – Charged per instance-hour consumed for each instance type, from t he time job flow began processing until it is terminated. Each partial instance- hour consumed will be billed as a full hour Amazon SQS - Based on data transferred ― in‖ and ― out ‖ of Amazon SQS/based on Amazon SQS request s which includes CreateQueue, List Queues, DeleteQueue, SendMessage, ReceiveMessage, ChangeMessageVisibilit y, DeleteMessage, Set QueueAttributes, Get QueueAttributes

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Add P ermision, and Remove Permission

Amazon RDS - Based on per DB Instance-hour consumed, from the time a DB Instance is launched until it is terminated.

Each partial DB Instance-hour consumed will be billed as a full hour/based on provisioned storage and number of I/O request s /After t he DB Instance is terminated, backup storage/ data transferred ― in‖ and ― out‖ of Amazon RDS Amazon EC 2 - Pricing is per instance-hour consumed for each instance type, from t he time an instance is launched until it is terminated. Each partial instance- hour consumed will be billed as a full hour.

Amazon FW S - No charge

Prepaid Available Available Available Available Available Available plan availability

Special Amazon Flexible Payments No special service available No special service available No special service available No special service available No special service available Service (Amazon FP S) and Payment Amazon DevPay. Services AWS also provides consolidated Billing feature which let s you designate one AWS account as a paying account and a set o f other account s as linked accounts t o form a simple one-level hierarchy

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Amazon AWS Google App Engine Window Azure Force.com Rack Space Go Grid Data

Choices of United States of America Not available Asia Not available North America San Francisco data hosting North Virginia, Grapevine, Netherlands, Hong Kong (East), location North California, Richardson, Singapore(south east), California West Oregon, Chicago, Europe Virginia, South America- Herndon, Ireland (North), Amsterdam, Sao Paul Ashburn Ashburn Netherlands(West) Asia Pacific Europe Singapore, United States of London UK, America Tokyo, Slough UK Sydney Illinois(North Central), Asia Texas(South Central), Europe Hong Kong Ireland Virginia,(East),

California,(West) Information t hat is collected by or sent t o Microsoft may be stored and processed in t he United States or any other country in which Microsoft or it s affiliates, subsidiaries, or service providers maintain facilities]

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Data Amazon RDS automatically T he user is solely responsible for T he user is solely responsible for All net working components, Although t he Rackspace Cloud Whet her or not Customer's patches t he database software and securing and backing up t he securing and backing up t he data. SSL accelerators, load service may be used as a backup Signup calls on GoGrid t o backup backs up t he database, storing t he Application and any Content. balancers, Web servers, and service, you agree t hat you will maintain back-ups, Customer backups for a user-defined maintain at least one additional will have t o keep a back-up Google has no responsibility or application servers are retention period configured in a redundant current copy of your programs copy of all data hosted by liability for t he deletion or failure t o configuration. and data stored on t he Rackspace GoGrid. Amazon AWS may delete, store any Content and other Cloud system somewhere other without liability of any kind, any communications maintained or All customer data is stored on a than on the Rackspace Cloud of t he Amazon SQS Content t hat transmitted through use of t he primary database server t hat is system. sit s in a queue or any queue t hat Service. clustered wit h a backup remains inactive for more than database server for redundancy t he number of days specified in t he user documentation. All customer data is stored on disk storage t hat is mirrored Amazon SimpleDB, in during the across different storage cabinets previous six (6) months you if and cont rollers t here are no incurred fees for SimpleDB and have registered no All customer data, up t o the last usage of t he Amazon SimpleDB commit ted transaction, is Content, Amazon AWS may automatically backed up t o a delete, without liability of any primary tape library on a nightly kind, t he Amazon SimpleDB basis Content upon thirty (30) days Backup t apes are immediately prior notice t o you. cloned t o a second t ape library Amazon S3 versioning provides t o verify t heir integrity, and t he an additional layer of protection clones are moved t o secure, for your S3 object s. You can fire-resist ant, off-site storage on easily recover from unintended

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user errors or application failures. a regular basis. You can also use Versioning for data retention and archiving. Disaster recovery plans are in Once you have enabled place. Versioning for a particular S3 bucket , any operation t hat would have overwritten an S3 object (P UT , P OST, COPY, and DELET E) retains t he old version of t he object.

Data after Amazon will not take any action t If Google suspends or terminates the Upon expiration or termination of your Upon a request made by you within You will not have access to your Not available o intentionally erase any of t he use of t he Service with cause (or if online service subscription, you must 30 days after t he effective date of data stored on the Rackspace termination data stored on the Services for a t he user voluntarily discontinues t he cont act Microsoft and t ell whether t o: termination of Your Force.com Free Cloud system during a period of thirty (30) days after the use of t he Service), t he user will Edit ion service, Force.com will suspension or following (1)disable your account and t hen delete effective date of termination have access t o, and t he ability t o make available t o You for download termination. your subscriber data; or export, t he Content for a period of a file of Your Data in comma Post termination retrieval of data ninety (90) days following such (2) Retain your subscriber data in a separated value (.csv) format along stored on t he Services will be suspension or termination. Fees will limited function account for at least 90 with attachments in t heir native conditioned on the payment of continue to be assessed for usage of days after expiration or termination of format Service data storage charges for t he Service in excess of any portion your subscript ion (t he ―retention 30-days after termination, Force.com t he period following termination, of t he Fee Threshold during t he 90 period‖) so t hat you may extract the shall have no obligation t o maintain day period data. payment in full of any other or provide any of Your Data and amount s due Amazon, and t he If you indicate (1), you will not be able t shall t hereafter, unless legally compliance with terms and o extract your subscriber data from your prohibited, delete all of Your Data in conditions Amazon may establish account. If you indicate (2), you will t he systems or otherwise in with respect to such data retrieval reimburse Microsoft for any applicable Force.com’s possession or under its cost s. If you do not indicate (1) or (2), control. Microsoft will retain your subscriber data in accordance with (2). Following t he expiration of t he retention period, Microsoft will disable your account and t hen delete your subscriber data.

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Amazon AWS Google App Engine Window Azure Force.com Rack Space Go Grid

Account

Notice Free Services - Notice period will You may discontinue your use of the T here is no notice Period before Salesforce may terminate Your Rackspace may terminate the GoGrid will provide 30 be provided t o via t he email Service at any time. Google may, at termination or suspension, but upon Force.com service at any time Agreement for breach on days advanced writ t en period address provided t o during any time, terminate your use of t he expiration or termination of your without cause upon 60 days’ writ t en notice notice of any termination before registration for the Services Service if (A) you have breached any online service subscription, you can writ t en notice t o You, or (b) upon for convenience. Upon You may terminate t he provision of t he Terms (or have cont act Microsoft and t ell whether 7 days’ writ t en notice to You of a termination for termination Paid Services (other than Amazon Agreement for breach on acted in manner t hat clearly shows t o: material breach of the Agreement convenience, GoGrid will FP S and Amazon DevPay) - sixty writ t en notice if: (i) t hat you do not intend t o, or are (1)disable your account and t hen if such breach remains uncured at refund any amounts (60) days’ advance notice Rackspace materially fails to unable t o comply with the provisions t he expiration of such period prepaid for Service not yet delete your subscriber data; or provide t he Services as Amazon FP S and Amazon DevP of t he Terms); or (B) Google is provided. (2)retain your subscriber data in a agreed and do not remedy ay - Notice period will be provided required t o do so by law (for limited function account for at least t hat failure within five (5) t o via the email address provided t example, due t o a change t o t he law 90 days after expiration or days of your writ t en notice o during registration for t he governing t he provision of the termination of your subscription describing t he failure, or (ii) Services Service); or (C) t he Service relies on Rackspace materially fails to data or services provided by a third meet any other obligation part y partner and t he relationship stated in t he Agreement and with such partner (i) has expired or do not remedy that failure been terminated or (ii) requires within thirty (30) days of Google t o change t he way Google your writ t en notice provides t he data or services through t describing t he failure. he Service; or (D) providing t he Service could create a substantial economic burden as determined by Google in it s reasonable good faith judgment ; or (E) providing t he Service could create a security risk or material technical burden as determined by Google in it s reasonable good faith judgment.

New user Amazon SimpleDB users pay no An efficient application on a free During Community Technology Force.com free edition Not available Included free wit h every charges on t he first 25 Machine account can use up t o 1GB of P review (CT P), services included in account , trail Hours, 1 GB of Storage, and 1 GB storage and up t o 5 million page Windows Azure will be available credentials of Data Transfer Out consumed views a month without charge - subject to certain f5 Hardware Load every month limit s. Balancing

Once Windows Azure is launched 10GB of Cloud Storage for commercial use, it will be priced per month and licensed through both packaged offers, and t he consumption.

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Amazon AWS Google App Engine Window Azure Force.com Rack Space Go Grid

Security

Data Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud App Engine runs Java applications Filtering Routers User authentication features such Enterprise firewalls, email Provided via ServePath’s (EC2) provides Host Operating using t he Java 6 virtual machine as SAML through t o IP range account s include antivirus secure infrastructure and security System, Guest operating system (JVM). T he JVM runs in a secured Firewalls restrict ions on logons, session and spam protection. SSL telecom facility and a complete firewall solution. "sandbox" environment t o isolate Cryptographic Protection of security and auditing. capabilities available as an It also provides a way t o encrypt your application for service and add on service Messages Security Addresses all layers, t he AP I calls in transit wit h SSL security. T he JVM can execute any t o maintain confidentiality.AWS Java bytecode t hat operates within Soft ware Security Patch Physical Security net work provides significant t he sandbox restrictions Management

protection and also enables Logical Net work Security T he Python interpreter also runs in a centralized monitoring, customer t o implement further Host Security secured "sandbox" environment t o correlation, and analysis systems protection isolate your application for service Transmission Level Security Amazon Simple Storage Service and security Net work Segmentation (Amazon S3):Amazon S3 is Database Security Go compiler runs inside a secured Service Administration Access accessible via SSL encrypted “sandbox” environment. endpoints. Data stored within Physical Security

Amazon S3 is not encrypted at limited number of Microsoft rest by AWS. However, users can personnel may access customer encrypt t heir data before it is information t o respond t o support uploaded t o Amazon S3 so t hat r equest s and as part of incident t he data cannot be accessed or response tampered with by unauthorized parties. Windows Azure compute SimpleDB AP Is provide domain - provides optional sandboxing technology and mandatory level controls that only permit sandboxing features t hat at tempts authenticated access by domain t o limit t he harm t o t he creator, therefore t he customer infrastructure and all other maintains full control over who customers from such bugs. has access t o t heir data. SimpleDB access can be Windows Azure provides virtual granted based on an AWS machines t o customers, giving Account ID.SimpleDB is t hem access t o most of t he same accessible via SSL-encrypted security options available in endpoints. Windows Server. Updates to the soft ware and configuration are

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Controlled by SSL client certificates and protected by 128 bit encryption.

All Microsoft administrative operations are audited.

US Safe Harbor Industry SAS70 Type II US Safe Harbor US Safe Harbor US Safe Harbor SAS Type II SAS 70 Type II and SysTrust regulatory HIP AA Safe Harbor Policy SOX Certified compliance ISO 27001 Certified

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Amazon AWS Google App Engine Window Azure Force.com Rack Space Go Grid

Others

Virtualization EC2 uses modified Xen Not available Modified Hyper-V hypervisor Not available Xen virtualization Xen virtualization Platform virtualization.

Control Panel Web based Interface Web based Interface Web based Interface Web based Interface Control panel is custom Multi-server hosting control built by and for t he panel to manage servers, Rackspace Cloud scale Web service. management applications and networks interfaces for the Cloud

Sites, Cloud Servers and Cloud Files services as well as a web based file manager. Age of Service Since early 2006 Since July 2008 Since October 2008 Since 2007 Since 2006 March 2008

Table: Cloud providers’ comparison

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Disclaimer

The comparison table has been compiled based on latest information available on the websites of cloud providers. The contents are subject to change with time, as and when the cloud providers come up with new innovations and features.

Following are the links to the agreement and policies of the cloud providers compared in this paper.

http://aws.amazon.com/agreement - Dated March 15, 2012 http://www.google.com/accounts/TOS - Dated March 1, 2012 http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/en/us/IntellectualProperty/Copyright/Default.aspx - Dated January 26, 2012 http://privacy.microsoft.com/en -us/fullnotice.mspx - Dated April, 2012 http://www.salesforce.com/company/privacy/ - Dated June 8, 2012 http://www.rack space.com/information/legal/privacystatement.php - Dated February 22, 2010 http://www.gogrid.com/legal/terms-service.php,http://www.gogrid.com/legal/privacy -policy.php - Dated August 25, 2010

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