The software of the public cloud

There are still a lot of people who think the public cloud is just a way to outsource your data center. But the true power of the public cloud is understanding how to use the SOFTWARE and SERVICES it offers.

What’s so great about these services is that they are maintained and managed for you and improved continuously. Even better, they are offered on a pay-per-use basis, without requiring a long-term contract, and usually accessed via an API call. Compare this to the alternative, where you select, install and manage products in a private cloud (or pay IBM exorbitant fees to do it for you). Given all that, it’s pretty obvious that telcos need to learn how to use all of these services, understand which works best for their companies, and begin writing code for the public cloud.

When people think about the public cloud, they think of it as compute, storage and databases. But when you really start to understand what they offer, you’ll also find AI/ML, networking, IoT, ID and security, and data analytics.

While there are a few offerings that are distinct across the three hyperscalers, in most cases, if there’s a service on one public cloud, there’s probably a similar service on the other public clouds. You’ll have to read the documentation to understand the differences between the offerings and roadmaps, so your mileage may vary.

We found this table, which was created and maintained by Google Cloud, that compares the services it provides to similar offerings from Azure and AWS. I posted it on LinkedIn and it got a TON of views, so we wanted to put together a handy reference for developers who are familiar with one cloud and wanted to explore another, or found a solution on one cloud and needed to port it to another.

Hyperscaler Services

First up, Google Cloud. Google created this infographic, which lists all of the services it offers, separated into categories. Those new to Google Cloud can create an account to see how these services perform in real-world scenarios. It’s try-before-you-buy, without the risk of investing in private cloud – so what’s to lose? GCP also offers a deal sweetener: new customers get $300 in credits to run, test, and deploy workloads.

Next, let’s look at Azure’s services. It also has a list of all the services it offers. Again, these range from AI/ML to DevOps, containers, and security. The grand total? An impressive 280. Like GCP, Azure offers some of these services for free for 12 months, as well as a $200 credit to use in 30 days.

Finally, AWS lists its equally extensive range of services here. It has over 200 covering a huge range of technologies, industries and use cases. Customers can use more than 100 of these services and start building on AWS using its Free Tier.

After staring at these charts for a while you’ll see there’s a lot of overlap of the services across hyperscalers. The services offered are also constantly growing and improving, with new services being added all the time. For instance, check out the list from AWS’s re:Invent last year. Every year the hyperscalers each put on their own cloud events, so get ready for a mother lode drop of new announcements and launches from each of them. If you use a hyperscaler today (or are starting to kick the tires), then you’ll want to participate in these events. Google Cloud Next is happening October 12 – 14, then Microsoft Ignite takes place November 2 – 4, and finally AWS’ re:Invent returns November 29 – December 3.

Learning how to use these services isn’t hard but it does take some training. As a baby step into the cloud I advise organizations to just get started. Start to create applications and start to experiment with these services and begin to comprehend the possibilities. A place where your teams can start NOW is by participating in Totogi’s TM Forum Digital Transformation World Series Coding Workshop which will be held on October 7.  We’ll use Totogi BS, the TMForum Open APIs and AWS to show you how to create, deploy and use a new feature in minutes. This workshop will give you the tools and skills you need to start getting way more than just infrastructure from the public cloud and get you to realize how much more is possible with the public cloud.

Want to find out more? Then drop me a DM on Twitter or send me a message on LinkedIn if you want to attend.

See you there!

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