These days, it’s a rarity to find a business without a cloud strategy in place, or at least using some form of cloud services. As it stands, based on the latest report by Flexera’s RightScale cloud industry research team, 94 percent of enterprises use cloud. Assuming that a business hasn’t taken that important first step, cloud computing, despite its pervasiveness can be complex. Choosing the right public cloud provider is nuanced and daunting.

In Malaysia, the top public cloud players currently are Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Microsoft Azure, and up-and-comer Alibaba Cloud. While AWS continues to lead in the global front thanks to its seven-year head start before the competition, Alibaba Cloud is rising up the ranks, especially in the region. The four major players make up around 84 percent of the entire cloud services market.

Alibaba Cloud is now the world’s third largest IaaS providers, reporting consistent triple digital revenue growth in recent years, topping USD2.5 billion in 2018 (Data: Gartner). In the Asia Pacific region, Alibaba Cloud leads in market share, capturing 19.6 percent in 2018.

Here, we look at the distinct feature and advantages of each provider.

Amazon Web Services

Widest range of cloud services—whether it’s compute, storage, database, analytics, management tool, IoT, and more, AWS offers over 200+ cloud services, and it’s still growing.

Flexible pricing—It employs three payment models—pay-as-you-go, save when you reserve, and pay less when using more (volume-based discounts).

Global infrastructure—AWS’s footprint spans 69 availability zones within 22 geographic regions, with nine more plans across three more regions.

Microsoft Azure

Familiarity—With Azure and other Microsoft products under the same roof, it’s no surprise that Microsoft has put traditional Windows tools to the cloud. You can launch a Windows desktop in Azure, as well as other familiar products like Windows Server, Office, and more.

Cost savings—Businesses using Microsoft tools usually have Enterprise Agreements to use a range of products at a volume-based discount. Companies can easily use Azure as their cloud provider and enjoy further cost savings.

Hybrid cloud possibilities—Azure is well suited for building scalable and secure hybrid clouds.

Google Cloud Platform (GCP)

Future-focused—GCP leans towards future technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), and other advanced technology segments. It has a complete environment for building AI and ML products.

Affordable pricing—GCP offers a pay-as-you-go model with no upfront fees, keeping the barrier of entry low. It also offers various discounts, cost-effective plans and free services.

Live migration—GCP is the only cloud provider that offers live migration. You can migrate a virtual machine (VM) to a different host with no downtime.

Alibaba Cloud

Growing player—the biggest cloud provider in China is also spreading its wings across the globe. It has 61 availability zones across 20 economic centres globally, with coverage extending across mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Japan, Australia, the Middle East, Europe, Indonesia, UK and the US (East and West Coast).

Flexible pricing—Alibaba Cloud offers a flexible pricing system with both prepaid and pay-as-you-go models with per-second billing. It also offers targeted discount plans.

Fast-growing services—Alibaba Cloud is rapidly growing its services list and actively investing in developing advanced tools in areas such as AI, ML, and big data.

Data intelligence— Being the data intelligence backbone of the Alibaba Group, Alibaba Cloud‘s strength is in data intelligence—providing businesses with actionable insights and decision-making capabilities, powered by artificial intelligence (AI).

Local presence—Alibaba Cloud provides unmatched latency and response time through its two availability zones—Malaysia and Indonesia.

Proven performance—Alibaba’s own ecosystem—from e-commerce to logistics, payments to entertainment and travel.

This post is brought to you exclusively by Alibaba Cloud