Cloud Comparisons

This Cloud Comparisons page features content that helps readers understand common use cases for when to use one cloud solution or another. Compare and contrast cloud solutions and learn the nuances of different use cases that work best for your situation. 

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What's the difference between containers and virtual machines?

Containers and virtual machines are technologies that make your applications independent from your IT infrastructure resources. A container is a software code package containing an application’s code, its libraries, and other dependencies.A virtual machine is a digital copy of a physical machine.

What are the differences among a data lake, data warehouse, and data mart?

Data warehouses, data lakes, and data marts are different cloud storage solutions. A data warehouse stores data in a structured format. A data mart is a data warehouse that serves the needs of a specific business unit. On the other hand, a data lake is a central repository for raw data and unstructured data.

What are the differences among hybrid apps, native apps, and web apps?

An application is a software that lets you exchange information with customers and help them complete specific tasks. Different types of apps are based on their development method and internal functionality. Web apps are delivered over an internet browser. Native apps are built for a specific platform or device type. On the otherhand, hybrid apps are native applications with a web browser embedded inside them.

What's The Difference Between Kubernetes And Docker?

Kubernetes and Docker are both container technologies. Kubernetes is a container orchestration tool that allows you to manage multiple container runtimes. Docker is a container runtime technology that allows you to build, test, and deploy applications applications faster than traditional methodsquickly. 

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  • Analytics

    What’s the Difference Between Structured…

    Structured data and unstructured data are two broad categories of collectible data. Structured data is data that fits neatly into data tables and includes discrete data types such as numbers, short text, and dates. Unstructured data doesn’t fit neatly into a data table because its size or nature: for example, audio and video files and large text documents. Sometimes, numerical or textual data can be unstructured because modeling it as a table is inefficient. For example, sensor data is a constant stream of numerical values, but creating a table with two columns—timestamp and sensor value—would be inefficient and impractical. Both structured data and unstructured data are essential in modern analytics.

  • Front-End Web & Mobile

    What’s the Difference Between a Dedicated…

    A dedicated server and a virtual private server (VPS) are two types of website hosting solutions. In dedicated hosting, you can rent an entire physical server to host your website. The web hosting provider gives you exclusive access to the entire physical server. However, this solution is expensive and often unnecessary for most organizations. Because of hardware advancements, a physical server has the computing capacity to do much more than host a single website. Instead of overprovisioning resources, you can use a VPS that provides a dedicated environment more cost-effectively. It’s called virtual because it consumes only a portion of the server's underlying physical resources. The same physical server can have several VPSs that share underlying resources in a predetermined manner.

  • Networking & Content Delivery

    What’s the Difference Between IPv4 and IPv6?

    IPv4 and IPv6 are two versions of the Internet Protocol (IP) addressing system. IP is a set of communication rules that provide data exchange over the internet. At its core, the internet is a collection of billions of devices that share data with each other through networking technologies. IP uses a numbering system to give every connected device a unique identification number or address. IPv4 uses a 32-bit address format and can accommodate more than 4 billion address spaces. With the expansion of the internet and Internet of Things (IoT) systems, IPv4 is proving to be insufficient in its addressing range. It is being phased out by IPv6, which uses a 128-bit address format and can accommodate more than 1x1036 addresses.

  • Databases

    What’s the Difference Between Cassandra…

    Apache Cassandra and Apache HBase are NoSQL databases that store data in a non-tabular format. Both store data as key-value stores on big data infrastructure to manage massive data volumes accurately and efficiently. However, they do have architectural differences that suit different use cases better. For example, Cassandra provides fast read and write performance, and HBase provides greater data consistency. HBase is also more effective for handling large, sparse datasets. Organizations use Cassandra and HBase for different big data use cases.

  • Developer Tools

    What’s the Difference Between Observability…

    In DevOps, observability and monitoring are two distinct data-based processes. You use them to successfully maintain and manage the health and performance of distributed microservice architectures and their infrastructure. Distributed systems work by exchanging data between tens to hundreds or thousands of different components. 

    Monitoring is the process of collecting data and generating reports on different metrics that define system health. Observability is a more investigative approach. It looks closely at distributed system component interactions and data collected by monitoring to find the root cause of issues. It includes activities like trace path analysis, a process that follows the path of a request through the system to identify integration failures. Monitoring collects data on individual components, and observability looks at the distributed system as a whole.

  • Databases

    What’s the Difference Between a Logical…

    Apache Cassandra and Apache HBase are NoSQL databases that store data in a non-tabular format. Both store data as key-value stores on big data infrastructure to manage massive data volumes accurately and efficiently. However, they do have architectural differences that suit different use cases better. For example, Cassandra provides fast read and write performance, and HBase provides greater data consistency. HBase is also more effective for handling large, sparse datasets. Organizations use Cassandra and HBase for different big data use cases.

  • Networking & Content Delivery

    What’s the Difference Between Application,…

    Application load balancer (ALB), network load balancer (NLB), and gateway load balancer (GLB) are three types of load balancers used in the cloud. Load balancing is the process of distributing network traffic equally across a pool of resources supporting an application. Modern applications process millions of users simultaneously. These high-traffic volumes require many resource servers with duplicate data. To redirect application traffic, ALBs examine the requested content, such as HTTP headers or SSL session IDs. NLBs examine IP addresses and other network information to redirect traffic optimally. GLBs act as a transparent network gateway (a single entry and exit point for all traffic) and distribute traffic while scaling your virtual appliances with the demand.

  • Databases

    What’s the Difference Between an ACID and…

    ACID and BASE are database transaction models that determine how a database organizes and manipulates data. In the context of databases, a transaction is any operation that the database considers a single unit of work. A transaction must complete fully for the database to remain consistent. For example, when you transfer money from one bank account to another, the money must leave your account and must be added to the third-party account. You cannot call the transaction complete without both steps occurring. 

    ACID databases prioritize consistency over availability—the whole transaction fails if an error occurs in any step within the transaction. In contrast, BASE databases prioritize availability over consistency. Instead of failing the transaction, users can access inconsistent data temporarily. Data consistency is achieved, but not immediately.

  • Artificial Intelligence

    What’s the Difference Between Data Science…

    Both data science and artificial intelligence (AI) are umbrella terms for methods and techniques related to understanding and using digital data. Modern organizations collect information from a range of online and physical systems on every aspect of human life. We have text, audio, video, and image data available in large quantities. Data science combines statistical tools, methods, and technology to generate meaning from data. Artificial Intelligence takes this one step further and uses the data to solve cognitive problems commonly associated with human intelligence, such as learning, pattern recognition, and human-like expression. It is a collection of complex algorithms that "learn" as they go, becoming better at solving problems over time.

  • Developer Tools

    What’s the Difference Between Terraform and…

    Terraform and Kubernetes are DevOps tools used in application deployment and lifecycle management. However, they both perform different functions. Terraform is an Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tool developers use to automatically create, provision, and manage cloud IT resources. With it, you can focus on what you need from your cloud infrastructure and automatically handles the steps necessary for the setup. In contrast, Kubernetes is a container orchestration tool that helps you manage your containers at scale. It manages resource provisioning, container scheduling, grouping, and other coordination tasks.

  • Compute

    What’s the Difference Between On-Demand…

    On-Demand and Reserved Instances are two pricing models for Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances you can provision in the AWS cloud. Functionally, both types are the same. You can choose from several different compute and memory configurations for different workloads. The difference exists only in pricing. With On-Demand Instances, you pay for computing capacity by the hour or second (with a minimum of 60 seconds) with no long-term commitment. You pay only for what you use, and the instance automatically scales up or down with changing workloads. In contrast, Reserved Instances provide a discounted rate and an optional capacity reservation for your instances. You rent the Reserved Instance for a fixed period at a lower per-second or per-hour rate than the equivalent On-Demand Instance. Spot Instances provide an additional instance pricing model with strict conditions.

  • Containers

    What’s the Difference Between Docker…

    Docker images and containers are application deployment technologies. Traditionally, to run any application, you had to install the version that matched your machine’s operating system. However, now you can create a single software package, or container, that runs on all types of devices and operating systems. Docker is a software platform that packages software into containers. Docker images are read-only templates that contain instructions for creating a container. A Docker image is a snapshot or blueprint of the libraries and dependencies required inside a container for an application to run.

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