Evaluating Cloud Service Providers: AWS Vs IBM BlueMix

AWS vs IBM

Discuss about the Evaluating Cloud Service Providers.

The increasing demand for the cloud services has inspired technical giants to jump in the competitive cloud market which has the confused the consumers on to select any one of them. Hence, the designed report will assist the readers to select a cloud service provider from the compared service providers. Following is the list of most significant cloud service providers:

• Amazon Web services (AWS)
• Google App Engine
• Microsoft Azure
• IBM BlueMix
• Red Hat OpenShift
• Engine Yard
• Oracle Voice
• Cloud Foundry
• Long Jump
• AppFog
• Heroku
• CloudBees
• Caspio
• Adobe Creative Cloud
• VMware
• Rackspace
• Alibaba Cloud
• Pivotal web services
• PodSpace
• Multiple others

The four most significant of them who offer PaaS (Platform-as-a-service), apart from the IBM Bluemix are AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google App Engine and pivotal web services. Further AWS is shortlisted for comparing with the IBM BlueMix. The reason for selection is laid on the fact that AWS is “The biggest cloud service provider currently with over 47% of total public cloud market share.” and “Resources on AWS is easily available than others.”.

The table shown below discusses the services offered by the           

 Table 1: COMPARISON OF PAAS SERVICES

(Source: Created by the Author)

The design and navigation are of great vitality in attracting the consumers and keeping the deemed point in mind the BlueMix has focused on making the PaaS platform to be user-friendly. The sub-sectioning and ease of the AWS are appreciable. However, it is not as comfortable as the BlueMix. However, BlueMix does offer some navigational challenges relevant to the UI, but they are minor and can be ignored by the developers based on other options. Hence it can be stated that in the designing and navigation the latter is leading than the AWS cloud PaaS services.

It should be noted that ‘XYZ’ stands for the options to be selected while ‘XYZ/ABC’ stands for selecting the option ABC in the section XYZ. The coding is available on the official website of the discussed cloud providers.

The following steps are involved in developing and deploying a ‘hello world’ application in the IBM BlueMix PaaS service.

1. Toolchain development:

• Signing in to the account
• Navigating to DevOps.
• Accessing the ‘Create a toolchain/Develop a cloud Foundry app’ option.
• Assigning a name to the toolchain.
• ‘New/Repository type’ for selecting “Git repos and issues tracking” where new name can be assigned to the repo.
• ‘Create’ will offer an overview page of the toolchain.

2. Webpage development:

• In the overview toolchain overview page ‘Eclipse Orion Web IDE’ to open a Web IDE.
• Within the Web IDE, ‘File/New/File’.
• Rename the highlighted file as “index.html”.
• “CODING”.

3. Manifest Development:
   • Inside Web IDE ‘File/New/File’
   • Rename the highlighted file as “manifest.yml”
   • Coding
4. Application Deployment:
   • Inside Web IDE “deploy’.
   • Post-deployment ‘Open the application URL’ in the web browser.
   • The website opens up in new window tab.
5. Committing the changes to repo:
   • ‘Git’, ‘Commit’, ‘Sync’ will enable the users to commit the required changes to the repo.

The following steps can enable the user to achieve the defined objective of deploying the application.

1. Launching a “Windows server Amazon EC2 instance”:
   • Signing in to the console.
   • Inside navigation pane ‘instances/instances’.
   • Browsing to and selecting the self-defined “Windows server Instance” in the list.
   • ‘Connect’, ‘Get Password’, ‘Browse/open’ and finally ‘Decrypt password’ before selecting ‘Download remote desktop file’ and opening it.
2. Configuring the source content for deployment of the “Windows Server Amazon EC2 Instance”:
   • Creating a web page: Creating a subfolder of name “HelloWorldApp” and coding. Followed by creating a file inside the subfolder by the name of “index.html” and insert the coding in the file.
   • Developing a script to run the program: In the above-created subfolder another file named “before-install.bat” is created using text editor and batch script code is inserted.
   • Adding an app specification file: In the discussed subfolder another file is created using the text editor and saved in the name of “appspec.yml” which is coded with the YAML code.
3. Uploading of the “Hello world” application:
   • In the discussed step, an “Amazon-S3 bucket (CLI) is created for calling the “mb” command of the name “codedeployement”. It is created as ‘create bucket/bucket name/region/create’ followed by some coding to authorise the access to the Amazon S3 Bucket along with the IAM user.
4. Deployment of the application:
   • A CLI is used to create a service role, and ARN is achieved, and “create-deployment-group” command and another is created by the name of “Helloworld_Depgroup”, and some coding is Following that the deployment of the application revision (console) is done and monitoring of the troubleshooting method is done before finally verifying the deployment.
5. Updating and redeploying the application:
   • In the discussed step the web page is modified and redeployed by making the coding changes to the “index.html” file.
   • The redeployment is carried out in two steps first being the CLI and secondly on the Console.

The level of difficulty is higher in the AWS platform because of its detailed process in achieving the objective of the deploying the “Hello World” application. However, it is significantly beneficial in the long-term because it will enable the user to understand the concept and make necessary changes if needed. On the other hand, the developers who are looking for the ease in deployment process should opt for the BlueMix because it offers ease in the process, however, lacks clarity of the measures that are taken in achieving the goals. In conclusion, it can be stated that the organisational and professional developers would be more comfortable with the BlueMix while the scholarly activists would be more satisfied with the AWS service.

Navigation and Design

AWS is the global leader in the field of cloud services, and one of the reasons behind that is the large size of resources (space, memory and others) that it allows to the users. It also offers the option to enhance or reduce the size of the inventory as per the requirement of the users. Limited accessibility of managing the resources is also offered to the customers to make variations as per their desire. On the other hand, BlueMix offers extended accessibility to managing of resources which can be proved to be concerning from the security perspective. Additionally, it lacks way behind than the former when compared with the offered resource size, but it also offers the flexibility of managing the resources and an additional option of capacity planning which can assist the user in understanding their needs. Another notable factor for the resource allocation and management process is that the costing of the AWS is much higher than the BlueMix.

On the evaluation of both the services, it is evident that both the service providers offer some excellent services and are leading from each other in one sector or the other. However, the author of the paper would like to recommend the AWS as a PaaS service option. The reason for the selection is based on the flexibility of multiple languages and OS platforms along with colossal scalability benefits. Additionally, the vast domain of resource is a perk that cannot be avoided. The detailed process of deployment of applications is another positive attribute according to the author as it helps the users to enhance their skills. However, the cost is a factor that needs to be concerned before equipping the services which are justified in accordance with the offered services and benefits.

Conclusion:

The report can be emphasised to state that understanding the demand of the cloud services multiple organisations are jumping in the field to satisfy consumers need. This considerable competition has made the situation advantageous for the end-users, as they are getting the services that they need with enhanced capabilities. The comparison between the discussed service providers has enabled the author and readers capability to select the factors that need to be considered before equipping the cloud services. Additionally, an idea about the development and deployment process of the “Hello World” application has even offered a basic idea of the application development. Hence, in conclusion, it can be stated that the report has offered an idea of the cloud service providers and all of them offer some elite services and hence should be selected depending upon the requirement.

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