Many cloud computing surveys are constantly being published with varying — sometimes contradicting — data points. But one thing is becoming increasingly clear: Microsoft Azure is the primary challenger to Amazon Web Services Inc. (AWS), especially at the high end.
Sumo Logic’s latest survey examines “The New Normal: Cloud and DevOps as well as SaaS Analytics Tools” in the modern app era.
Sumo Logic, a “machine-data analytics service”, contracted UBM to survey 235 IT operations and application development professionals at companies with at most 500 employees. About half of the respondents worked at companies with 5,000 employees or more.
The survey found that Azure beats AWS at the highest end of the enterprise spectrum.
According to the survey report, “In the early days cloud computing, Amazon Web Services (AWS), was the preferred cloud computing vendor.” The survey found that organizations are becoming more comfortable using cloud vendors other than AWS as the cloud matures. While other reports indicate that AWS still holds a lead in cloud market shares, this survey revealed that Microsoft Azure was the top cloud vendor. This survey only included organizations with at least 500 employees.
[Click on the image to see a larger version.] IaaS and PaaS Vendors (source : SumoLogic) “When asked which IaaS/PaaS vendors they used (with multiple responses permitted), 66 percent of respondents mentioned Azure. It is interesting to note that more than half of Azure users were from large organizations with over 10,000 employees. This suggests that Microsoft’s cloud service is very popular with large enterprises. AWS was second with 55 percent, followed by Salesforce App Cloud (28%), IBM Cloud (23%), and Google Cloud (20%).
This finding confirms other surveys. For example, last year’s survey from Spiceworks Inc. found that Azure beat AWS in the Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) space. According to that report, Microsoft Azure was the most used public cloud IaaS provider (16%) followed closely by Amazon Web Services (13%). Azure is expected to experience the greatest growth with 21 percent IT professionals considering it, while AWS is being considered only by 11 percent.
FBR Capital Markets’ January 2016 report stated that “we continue to believe 2016 is a ‘206-area code street battle for cloud”, with Microsoft best placed to compete with AWS in the enterprise cloud front for many years to come.”
A RightScale Inc. 2015 report said that “Cloud competition for enterprise (1000+ employees), got a lot more interesting.” AWS maintains a lead (50% vs. 49% in 2014), but Azure IaaS is closing the gap significantly (19% vs. 11% in 2014). The AWS lead in enterprise has slashed from more than 4x down to 2.5x for its closest competitor.
These and other reports, taken together, indicate that AWS may have vulnerabilities that could threaten its cloud computing leadership. They are at the top end and in IaaS offerings.
As mentioned, however, there are always contradicting reports to point out. VisionMobile Ltd. has just released research that almost directly contradicts the Sumo Logic report.
According to the VisionMobile survey, Amazon Web Services (AWS), is the most popular primary cloud hosting provider for all sizes of companies. Amazon has a very low share of 15% for the smallest companies (1-5 employees), but they are facing strong competition from Microsoft (12%), Google (11%) and Digital Ocean (10%). If we look at larger companies, Amazon has a 26-27 percent share. However, Microsoft remains in the top 25.
