Edit

Share via

Google Cloud to Azure services comparison

  • Article

This article helps you understand how Microsoft Azure services compare to Google Cloud. (Note that Google Cloud used to be called the Google Cloud Platform (GCP).) Whether you are planning a multi-cloud solution with Azure and Google Cloud, or migrating to Azure, you can compare the IT capabilities of Azure and Google Cloud services in all the technology categories.

This article compares services that are roughly comparable. Not every Google Cloud service or Azure service is listed, and not every matched service has exact feature-for-feature parity.

For an overview of Azure for Google Cloud users, see the introduction to Azure for Google Cloud Professionals.

Marketplace

Google Cloud service Azure service Description
Google Cloud Marketplace Azure Marketplace Easy-to-deploy and automatically configured third-party applications, including single virtual machine or multiple virtual machine solutions.

Data platform

Database

Type Google Cloud service Azure service Azure service description
Relational database Cloud SQL - SQL Server Azure SQL family

Azure SQL Database
Azure SQL Managed Instance
SQL Server on Azure VM
Azure SQL Edge		 Azure SQL family of SQL Server database engine products in the cloud

Azure SQL Database is a fully managed platform as a service (PaaS) database engine

Azure SQL Managed Instance is the intelligent, scalable cloud database service
that combines the broadest SQL Server database engine compatibility with all the benefits of a fully managed and evergreen platform as a service

SQL Server IaaS deployed on Azure Windows or Linux VM

Azure SQL Edge is an optimized relational database engine geared for IoT and edge deployments
Cloud SQL MySQL & PostgreSQL Azure Database for MySQL (Single & Flexible Server)

Azure Database for PostgreSQL (Single & Flexible Server)

 Managed relational database service where resiliency, security, scale, and maintenance are primarily handled by the platform
Horizontally scalable relational database Cloud Spanner Azure Cosmos DB for NoSQL

 A globally-distributed database system that limitlessly scales horizontally. Is multi-modal -- key-value, graph, and document data). Supports multiple APIs: SQL, JavaScript, Gremlin, MongoDB, and Azure Table storage. Compute and storage can be scaled independently
Azure PostgreSQL Hyperscale (Citus) Azure Database for PostgreSQL is a fully managed database-as-a-service based on the open-source Postgres relational database engine. The Hyperscale (Citus) deployment option scales queries across multiple machines using sharding, to serve applications that require greater scale and performance
NoSQL Cloud Bigtable

 Azure Table storage A highly scalable NoSQL key-value store for rapid development using massive semi-structured datasets. Store semi-structured data that's highly available. Supporting flexible data schema and OData-based queries
Cloud Firestore Azure Cosmos DB Globally distributed, multi-model database that natively supports multiple data models: key-value, documents, graphs, and columnar
Firebase Realtime Database Azure Cosmos DB change feed Change feed in Azure Cosmos DB is a persistent record of changes to a container in the order they occur. Change feed works by listening to an Azure Cosmos DB container for any changes. It then outputs the sorted list of documents that were changed in the order in which they were modified. The persisted changes can be processed asynchronously and incrementally, and the output can be distributed across one or more consumers for parallel processing
In-memory Cloud Memorystore Azure Cache for Redis A secure data cache and messaging broker that provides high throughput and low-latency access to data for applications

Database architectures

  • Gaming using Azure Cosmos DB
    • 12/16/2019
    • 1 min read

    Elastically scale your database to accommodate unpredictable bursts of traffic and deliver low-latency multi-player experiences on a global scale.

view all

Data warehouse

Google Cloud service Azure service Description
BigQuery Azure Synapse Analytics

SQL Server Big Data Clusters

Azure Databricks		 Cloud-based Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) that uses Massively Parallel Processing (MPP) to quickly run complex queries across petabytes of data.


Allow you to deploy scalable clusters of SQL Server, Spark, and HDFS containers running on Kubernetes. These components are running side by side to enable you to read, write, and process big data from Transact-SQL or Spark, allowing you to easily combine and analyze your high-value relational data with high-volume big data.

Data warehouse architectures

  • Modern Data Warehouse Architecture
    • 12/16/2019
    • 2 min read

    Explore a cloud data warehouse that uses big data. Modern data warehouse brings together all your data and scales easily as your data grows.

  • Automated enterprise BI
    • 6/03/2020
    • 13 min read

    Automate an extract, load, and transform (ELT) workflow in Azure using Azure Data Factory with Azure Synapse Analytics.

view all

Data orchestration and ETL

Google Cloud service Azure service Description
Cloud Data Fusion Azure Data Factory

Azure Synapse Analytics		 Processes and moves data between different compute and storage services, as well as on-premises data sources at specified intervals. Create, schedule, orchestrate, and manage data pipelines.

Big data and analytics

Big data processing

Google Cloud service Azure service Description
Dataproc Azure HDInsight

Azure Synapse Analytics

Azure Databricks		 Managed Apache Spark-based analytics platform.

Big data architectures

  • Campaign Optimization with Azure HDInsight Spark Clusters
    • 12/16/2019
    • 4 min read

    This solution demonstrates how to build and deploy a machine learning model with Microsoft R Server on Azure HDInsight Spark clusters to recommend actions to maximize the purchase rate of leads targeted by a campaign. This solution enables efficient handling of big data on Spark with Microsoft R Server.

  • Big data analytics with Azure Data Explorer
    • 8/11/2020
    • 3 min read

    Big Data Analytics with Azure Data Explorer demonstrates Azure Data Explorer's abilities to cater to volume, velocity, and variety of data, the three V's of big data.

view all

Analytics and visualization

Google Cloud service Azure service Description
Cloud Dataflow Azure Databricks Managed platform for streaming batch data based on Open Source Apache products.
Data Studio

Looker		 Power BI Business intelligence tools that build visualizations, perform ad hoc analysis, and develop business insights from data.
Cloud Search Azure Search Delivers full-text search and related search analytics and capabilities.
BigQuery SQL Server Analysis Services Provides a serverless non-cloud interactive query service that uses standard SQL for analyzing databases.

Analytics architectures

  • Advanced Analytics Architecture
    • 12/16/2019
    • 2 min read

    Get near real-time data analytics on streaming services. This big data architecture allows you to combine any data at any scale with custom machine learning.

  • Automated enterprise BI
    • 6/03/2020
    • 13 min read

    Automate an extract, load, and transform (ELT) workflow in Azure using Azure Data Factory with Azure Synapse Analytics.

  • Mass ingestion and analysis of news feeds on Azure
    • 2/01/2019
    • 5 min read

    Create a pipeline for ingesting and analyzing text, images, sentiment, and other data from RSS news feeds using only Azure services, including Azure Cosmos DB and Azure Cognitive Services.

view all

Time series & IoT data

Google Cloud service Azure service Description
BigQuery Azure Data Explorer

Azure Cosmos DB		 Fully managed, low latency, and distributed big data analytics platform that runs complex queries across petabytes of data. Highly optimized for log and time series data.

Open and scalable end-to-end IoT analytics service. Collect, process, store, query, and visualize data at Internet of Things (IoT) scale--data that's highly contextualized and optimized for time series.

Time series architectures

AI and machine learning

Google Cloud service Azure service Description
Vertex AI Azure Machine Learning A cloud service to train, deploy, automate, and manage machine learning models.
TensorFlow ML.NET ML.NET is an open source and cross-platform machine learning framework for both machine learning & AI.
TensorFlow ONNX (Open Neural Network Exchange) ONNX is an open format built to represent machine learning models that facilitates maximum compatibility and increased inference performance.
Vision AI Azure Cognitive Services Computer Vision Use visual data processing to label content, from objects to concepts, extract printed and handwritten text, recognize familiar subjects like brands and landmarks, and moderate content. No machine learning expertise is required.
Natural Language AI Azure Cognitive Services Text Analytics Cloud-based services that provides advanced natural language processing over raw text, and includes four main functions: sentiment analysis, key phrase extraction, language detection, and named entity recognition.
Natural Language AI Azure Cognitive Services Language Understanding (LUIS) A machine learning-based service to build natural language understanding into apps, bots, and IoT devices. Quickly create enterprise-ready, custom models that continuously improve.
Speech-to-Text Azure Cognitive Services Speech To Text Swiftly convert audio into text from a variety of sources. Customize models to overcome common speech recognition barriers, such as unique vocabularies, speaking styles, or background noise.
AutoML Tables – Structured Data Azure ML - Automated Machine Learning Empower professional and non-professional data scientists to build machine learning models rapidly. Automate time-consuming and iterative tasks of model development using breakthrough research-and accelerate time to market. Available in Azure Machine learning, Power BI, ML.NET & Visual Studio.
AutoML Tables – Structured Data ML.NET Model Builder ML.NET Model Builder provides an easy to understand visual interface to build, train, and deploy custom machine learning models. Prior machine learning expertise is not required. Model Builder supports AutoML, which automatically explores different machine learning algorithms and settings to help you find the one that best suits your scenario.
AutoML Vision Azure Cognitive Services Custom Vision Customize and embed state-of-the-art computer vision for specific domains. Build frictionless customer experiences, optimize manufacturing processes, accelerate digital marketing campaigns-and more. No machine learning expertise is required.
AutoML Video Intelligence Azure Video Analyzer Easily extract insights from your videos and quickly enrich your applications to enhance discovery and engagement.
Dialogflow Azure Cognitive Services QnA Maker Build, train and publish a sophisticated bot using FAQ pages, support websites, product manuals, SharePoint documents or editorial content through an easy-to-use UI or via REST APIs.
AI Platform Notebooks Azure Notebooks Develop and run code from anywhere with Jupyter notebooks on Azure.
Deep Learning VM Image Data Science Virtual Machines Pre-Configured environments in the cloud for Data Science and AI Development.
Deep Learning Containers GPU support on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) Graphical processing units (GPUs) are often used for compute-intensive workloads such as graphics and visualization workloads. AKS supports the creation of GPU-enabled node pools to run these compute-intensive workloads in Kubernetes.
Data Labeling Service Azure ML - Data Labeling A central place to create, manage, and monitor labeling projects (public preview). Use it to coordinate data, labels, and team members to efficiently manage labeling tasks. Machine Learning supports image classification, either multi-label or multi-class, and object identification with bounded boxes.
AI Platform Training Azure ML – Compute Targets Designated compute resource/environment where you run your training script or host your service deployment. This location may be your local machine or a cloud-based compute resource. Using compute targets make it easy for you to later change your compute environment without having to change your code.
AI Platform Predictions Azure ML - Deployments Deploy your machine learning model as a web service in the Azure cloud or to Azure IoT Edge devices. Leverage serverless Azure Functions for model inference for dynamic scale.
Continuous Evaluation Azure ML – Data Drift Monitor for data drift between the training dataset and inference data of a deployed model. In the context of machine learning, trained machine learning models may experience degraded prediction performance because of drift. With Azure Machine Learning, you can monitor data drift and the service can send an email alert to you when drift is detected.
What-If Tool Azure ML – Model Interpretability Ensure machine learning model compliance with company policies, industry standards, and government regulations.
Cloud TPU Azure ML – FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Arrays) FPGAs contain an array of programmable logic blocks, and a hierarchy of reconfigurable interconnects. The interconnects allow these blocks to be configured in various ways after manufacturing. Compared to other chips, FPGAs provide a combination of programmability and performance.
Kubeflow Machine Learning Operations (MLOps) MLOps, or DevOps for machine learning, enables data science and IT teams to collaborate and increase the pace of model development and deployment via monitoring, validation, and governance of machine learning models.
Dialogflow Microsoft Bot Framework Build and connect intelligent bots that interact with your users using text/SMS, Skype, Teams, Slack, Microsoft 365 mail, Twitter, and other popular services.

AI and machine learning architectures

view all

Data catalog & governance

Google Cloud service Azure service Description
Dataplex Microsoft Purview Microsoft Purview is a comprehensive portfolio of products spanning data governance, data security, and risk and compliance solutions.

Compute

Virtual servers

Google Cloud service Azure service Description
Compute Engine Azure Virtual Machines Virtual servers allow users to deploy, manage, and maintain OS and server software. Instance types provide combinations of CPU/RAM. Users pay for what they use with the flexibility to change sizes.
Sole-tenant nodes Azure Dedicated Host Host your VMs on hardware that's dedicated only to your project.
Batch Azure Batch Run large-scale parallel and high-performance computing applications efficiently in the cloud.
Compute Engine Autoscaler

Compute Engine managed instance groups		 Azure virtual machine scale sets Allows you to automatically change the number of VM instances. You set defined metric and thresholds that determine if the platform adds or removes instances.
Cloud GPUs GPU Optimized VMs GPU-optimized VM sizes are specialized virtual machines that are available with single, multiple, or fractional GPUs. The sizes are designed for compute-intensive, graphics-intensive, and visualization workloads.
VMware Engine Azure VMware Solution Redeploy and extend your VMware-based enterprise workloads to Azure with Azure VMware Solution. Seamlessly move VMware-based workloads from your datacenter to Azure and integrate your VMware environment with Azure. Keep managing your existing environments with the same VMware tools that you already know, while you modernize your applications with Azure native services. Azure VMware Solution is a Microsoft service that is verified by VMware, and it runs on Azure infrastructure.

Containers and container orchestrators

Google Cloud service Azure service Description
Cloud Run Azure Container Apps Azure Container Apps is the fastest and simplest way to run a container in Azure, without having to provision any virtual machines or adopt a higher-level orchestration service.
Artifact Registry (beta)

Container Registry		 Azure Container Registry Allows customers to store Docker formatted images. Used to create all types of container deployments on Azure.
Kubernetes Engine (GKE) Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) Deploy orchestrated containerized applications with Kubernetes. Simplify cluster management and monitoring through automatic upgrades and a built-in operations console. See AKS solution journey.
Kubernetes Engine Monitoring Azure Monitor container insights Azure Monitor container insights is a feature designed to monitor the performance of container workloads deployed to: Managed Kubernetes clusters hosted on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS); Azure Container Instances, Self-managed Kubernetes clusters hosted on Azure Stack or on-premises; or Azure Red Hat OpenShift.
Anthos Service Mesh Open Service Mesh (OSM) It is a lightweight and extensible cloud native service mesh. OSM takes a simple approach for users to uniformly manage, secure, and get out-of-the box observability features for highly dynamic microservice environments

Container architectures

Here are some architectures that use AKS as the orchestrator.

view all

Functions

Google Cloud service Azure service Description
Cloud Functions Azure Functions Integrate systems and run backend processes in response to events or schedules without provisioning or managing servers.

Serverless architectures

  • Cross Cloud Scaling Architecture
    • 12/16/2019
    • 1 min read

    Learn how to improve cross cloud scalability with solution architecture that includes Azure Stack. A step-by-step flowchart details instructions for implementation.

DevOps and application monitoring

Google Cloud service Azure service Description
Operations (formerly Stackdriver) Azure Monitor Maximizes the availability and performance of your applications and services by delivering a comprehensive solution for collecting, analyzing, and acting on telemetry from your cloud and on-premises environments. It helps you understand how your applications are performing and proactively identifies issues affecting them and the resources on which they depend.
Cloud Trace Azure Monitor Maximizes the availability and performance of your applications and services by delivering a comprehensive solution for collecting, analyzing, and acting on telemetry from your cloud and on-premises environments. It helps you understand how your applications are performing and proactively identifies issues affecting them and the resources on which they depend.
Cloud Debugger Azure Monitor Maximizes the availability and performance of your applications and services by delivering a comprehensive solution for collecting, analyzing, and acting on telemetry from your cloud and on-premises environments. It helps you understand how your applications are performing and proactively identifies issues affecting them and the resources on which they depend.
Cloud Profiler Azure Monitor Maximizes the availability and performance of your applications and services by delivering a comprehensive solution for collecting, analyzing, and acting on telemetry from your cloud and on-premises environments. It helps you understand how your applications are performing and proactively identifies issues affecting them and the resources on which they depend.
Cloud Source Repositories Azure Repos, GitHub Repos A cloud service for collaborating on code development.
Cloud Build Azure Pipelines, GitHub Actions Fully managed build service that supports continuous integration and deployment.
Artifact Registry Azure Artifacts, GitHub Packages Add fully integrated package management to your continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines with a single click. Create and share Maven, npm, NuGet, and Python package feeds from public and private sources with teams of any size.
Cloud Developer Tools (including Cloud Code) Azure Developer Tools Collection of tools for building, debugging, deploying, diagnosing, and managing multiplatform scalable apps and services.
Gcloud SDK Azure CLI The Azure command-line interface (CLI) is a set of commands used to create and manage Azure resources. The Azure CLI is available across Azure services and is designed to get you working quickly with Azure, with an emphasis on automation.
Cloud Shell Azure Cloud Shell Azure Cloud Shell is an interactive, authenticated, browser-accessible shell for managing Azure resources. It provides the flexibility of choosing the shell experience that best suits the way you work, either Bash or PowerShell.
PowerShell on Google Cloud Azure PowerShell Azure PowerShell is a set of cmdlets for managing Azure resources directly from the PowerShell command line. Azure PowerShell is designed to make it easy to learn and get started with, but provides powerful features for automation. Written in .NET Standard, Azure PowerShell works with PowerShell 5.1 on Windows, and PowerShell 6.x and higher on all platforms.
Cloud Deployment Manager Azure Automation Delivers a cloud-based automation and configuration service that supports consistent management across your Azure and non-Azure environments. It comprises process automation, configuration management, update management, shared capabilities, and heterogeneous features. Automation gives you complete control during deployment, operations, and decommissioning of workloads and resources.
Cloud Deployment Manager Azure Resource Manager Provides a way for users to automate the manual, long-running, error-prone, and frequently repeated IT tasks.

DevOps architectures

view all

Internet of things (IoT)

Google Cloud service Azure service Description
Cloud IoT Core Azure Event Grid MQTT broker

Azure IoT Hub		 Gateways for managing bidirectional communication with IoT devices, securely and at scale.
Cloud Pub/Sub See Messaging and eventing section Process and route streaming data to a subsequent processing engine or to a storage or database platform.
Edge TPU Azure IoT Edge

Azure IoT Operations		 Deploy cloud intelligence directly on IoT devices to run in on-premises scenarios.

IoT architectures

  • IoT Architecture � Azure IoT Subsystems
    • 12/16/2019
    • 1 min read

    Learn about our recommended IoT application architecture that supports hybrid cloud and edge computing. A flowchart details how the subsystems function within the IoT application.

  • Process real-time vehicle data using IoT
    • 11/17/2020
    • 5 min read

    This example builds a real-time data ingestion/processing pipeline to ingest and process messages from IoT devices into a big data analytic platform in Azure.

view all

Management

Google Cloud service Azure service Description
Cloud Billing Azure Billing API Services to help generate, monitor, forecast, and share billing data for resource usage by time, organization, or product resources.
Cloud Console Azure portal A unified management console that simplifies building, deploying, and operating your cloud resources.
Operations (formerly Stackdriver) Azure Monitor Comprehensive solution for collecting, analyzing, and acting on telemetry from your cloud and on-premises environments.
Cost Management Microsoft Cost Management Microsoft Cost Management helps you understand your Azure invoice, manage your billing account and subscriptions, control Azure spending, and optimize resource use.

Messaging and eventing

Google Cloud service Azure service Description
Cloud Pub/Sub Azure Service Bus Supports a set of cloud-based, message-oriented middleware technologies including reliable message queuing and durable publish/subscribe messaging.
Cloud Pub/Sub Azure Event Grid A fully managed event routing service that allows for uniform event consumption using a publish/subscribe model.
Cloud Pub/Sub Azure Event Hubs A real-time data ingestion and microbatching service used to build dynamic data pipelines and integrates with other Azure services.

Messaging architectures

  • Scalable web application
    • 10/03/2019
    • 7 min read

    Use the proven practices in this reference architecture to improve scalability and performance in an Azure App Service web application..

Networking

Area Google Cloud service Azure service Description
Cloud virtual networking Virtual Private Network (VPC) Azure Virtual Network (Vnet) Provides an isolated, private environment in the cloud. Users have control over their virtual networking environment, including selection of their own IP address range, adding/updating address ranges, creation of subnets, and configuration of route tables and network gateways.
DNS management Cloud DNS Azure DNS Manage your DNS records using the same credentials that are used for billing and support contract as your other Azure services
Cloud DNS Azure Traffic Manager Azure Traffic Manager is a DNS-based load balancer that enables you to distribute traffic optimally to services across global Azure regions, while providing high availability and responsiveness.
Internal DNS Azure Private DNS Manages and resolves domain names in the virtual network, without the need to configure a custom DNS solution, and it provides a naming resolution for virtual machines (VMs) within a virtual network and any connected virtual networks.
Hybrid Connectivity Cloud Interconnect Azure ExpressRoute Establishes a private network connection from a location to the cloud provider (not over the Internet).
Cloud VPN Gateway Azure Virtual Network Gateway Connects Azure virtual networks to other Azure virtual networks, or customer on-premises networks (site-to-site). Allows end users to connect to Azure services through VPN tunneling (point-to-site).
Cloud VPN Gateway Azure Virtual WAN Azure virtual WAN simplifies large-scale branch connectivity with VPN and ExpressRoute.
Cloud router Azure Virtual Network Gateway Enables dynamic routes exchange using BGP.
Load balancing Network Load Balancing Azure Load Balancer Azure Load Balancer load-balances traffic at layer 4 (all TCP or UDP).
Global load balancing Azure Front door Azure front door enables global load balancing across regions using a single anycast IP.
Global load balancing Azure Application Gateway Application Gateway is a layer 7 load balancer. IT takes backends with any IP that is reachable. It supports SSL termination, cookie-based session affinity, and round robin for load-balancing traffic.
Global load balancing Azure Traffic Manager Azure Traffic Manager is a DNS-based load balancer that enables you to distribute traffic optimally to services across global Azure regions, while providing high availability and responsiveness.
Content delivery network Cloud CDN Azure CDN A content delivery network (CDN) is a distributed network of servers that can efficiently deliver web content to users.
Firewall Firewall rules Application security groups Azure Application security groups allow you to group virtual machines and define network security policies based on those groups.
Firewall rules Network Security groups Azure network security group filters network traffic to and from Azure resources in an Azure virtual network.
Firewall rules Azure Firewall Azure Firewall is a managed, cloud-based network security service that protects your Azure Virtual Network resources. It's a fully stateful firewall as a service with built-in high availability and unrestricted cloud scalability.
Web Application Firewall Cloud Armor Application Gateway - Web Application Firewall Azure Web Application Firewall (WAF) provides centralized protection of your web applications from common exploits and vulnerabilities.
Cloud Armor Front door – Azure Web Application Firewall Azure Web Application Firewall (WAF) on Azure Front Door provides centralized protection for your web applications.
Cloud Armor CDN – Azure Web Application Firewall Azure Web Application Firewall (WAF) on Azure Content Delivery Network (CDN) from Microsoft provides centralized protection for your web content.
NAT Gateway Cloud NAT Azure NAT Gateway NAT Gateway (network address translation) provides outbound NAT translations for internet connectivity for virtual networks.
Private Connectivity to PaaS Private Service Connect Azure Private Link Azure Private Link enables you to access Azure PaaS Services and Azure hosted customer-owned/partner services over a private endpoint in your virtual network.
Telemetry VPC Flow logs NSG Flow logs Network security group (NSG) flow logs are a feature of Network Watcher that allows you to view information about ingress and egress IP traffic through an NSG.
Firewall Rules Logging NSG Flow logs Network security group (NSG) flow logs are a feature of Network Watcher that allows you to view information about ingress and egress IP traffic through an NSG.
Operations (formerly Stackdriver) Azure Monitor Azure Monitor delivers a comprehensive solution for collecting, analyzing, and acting on telemetry from your cloud and on-premises environments. Log queries help you maximize the value of the data collected in Azure Monitor Logs.
Network Intelligence Center Azure Network Watcher Azure Network Watcher provides tools to monitor, diagnose, view metrics, and enable or disable logs for resources in an Azure virtual network.
Other Connectivity Options S2S,P2S Direct Interconnect,Partner Interconnect,Carrier Peering Point to Site lets you create a secure connection to your virtual network from an individual client computer. Site to Site is a connection between two or more networks, such as a corporate network and a branch office network.

Networking architectures

  • Deploy highly available NVAs
    • 12/08/2018
    • 7 min read

    Learn how to deploy network virtual appliances for high availability in Azure. This article includes example architectures for ingress, egress, and both.

  • Hub-spoke network topology in Azure
    • 9/30/2020
    • 7 min read

    Learn how to implement a hub-spoke topology in Azure, where the hub is a virtual network and the spokes are virtual networks that peer with the hub.

  • Implement a secure hybrid network
    • 1/07/2020
    • 9 min read

    See a secure hybrid network that extends an on-premises network to Azure with a perimeter network between the on-premises network and an Azure virtual network.

view all

Security and identity

Area Google Cloud service Azure service Description
Authentication and authorization Cloud Identity Microsoft Entra ID The Microsoft Entra enterprise identity service provides single sign-on and multifactor authentication, which enable the central management of users/groups and external identities federation.
Identity platform Azure Active Directory B2C A highly available and global identity management service for consumer-facing applications, which scales to hundreds of millions of identities. Manage customer, consumer, and citizen access to your business-to-consumer (B2C) applications.
Multifactor authentication Multifactor authentication Microsoft Entra multifactor authentication Safeguard access to data and applications, while meeting user demand for a simple sign-in process.
RBAC Identity and Access Management Azure role-based access control Azure role-based access control (Azure RBAC) helps you manage who has access to Azure resources, what they can do with those resources, and what areas they have access to.
ABAC Identity and Access Management Azure attribute-based access control Attribute-based access control (ABAC) is an authorization system that defines access based on attributes associated with security principals, resources, and the environment of an access request.
Zero trust Chrome Enterprise Premium Microsoft Entra Conditional Access Conditional Access is the tool used by Microsoft Entra ID to bring signals together, to make decisions, and to enforce organizational policies.
Resource management Resource Manager Azure Resource Manager Provides a management layer that enables you to create, update, and delete resources in your Azure account, like access control, locks, and tags, to secure and organize your resources after deployment.
Encryption Cloud KMS, Secret Manager Azure Key Vault Provides a security solution and works with other services by allowing you to manage, create, and control encryption keys that are stored in hardware security modules (HSM).
Data-at-rest encryption Encryption at rest Azure Storage Service Encryption - encryption by default Azure Storage Service Encryption helps you protect and safeguard your data and meet your organizational security and compliance commitments.
Data in-use Confidential Computing Azure Confidential Computing Encrypt data in-use.
Hardware security module (HSM) Cloud HSM Azure Dedicated HSM Azure service that provides cryptographic key storage in Azure, to host encryption keys and perform cryptographic operations in a high-availability service of FIPS 140-2 Level 3 certified hardware security modules (HSMs).
Data loss prevention (DLP) Cloud Data Loss Prevention Microsoft Purview Information Protection Microsoft Purview Information Protection (formerly Azure Information Protection) helps you discover, classify, and protect sensitive information wherever it lives or travels.
Security Security Command Center, Web Security Scanner Microsoft Defender for Cloud Microsoft Defender for Cloud is a cloud-native application protection platform (CNAPP) that is made up of security measures and practices that are designed to protect cloud-based applications.
Threat detection Event Threat Detection Microsoft Defender for Identity Microsoft Defender for Identity is a cloud-based security solution that helps secure your identity monitoring.
SIEM Chronicle Microsoft Sentinel A cloud-native security information and event manager (SIEM) platform that uses built-in AI to analyze large volumes of data from all sources, including users, applications, servers, and devices that are running on-premises or in any cloud.
Container security Container Security Container Security in Microsoft Defender for Cloud Microsoft Defender for Cloud is the Azure-native solution for securing your containers.
Artifact Registry Azure Container Registry A managed, private Docker registry service that's based on the open-source Docker Registry 2.0. Create and maintain Azure container registries to store and manage your private Docker container images and related artifacts that allow you to only deploy trusted containers.

Security architectures

view all

Storage

Object storage

Google Cloud service Azure service Description
Cloud Storage

Cloud Storage for Firebase		 Azure Blob storage Object storage service, for use cases including cloud applications, content distribution, backup, archiving, disaster recovery, and big data analytics.

Block storage

Google Cloud service Azure service Description
Persistant Disk

Local SSD		 Azure managed disks SSD storage optimized for I/O intensive read/write operations. For use as high-performance Azure virtual machine storage.

File storage

Google Cloud service Azure service Description
Filestore Azure Files, Azure NetApp Files File based storage and hosted NetApp Appliance Storage.
Google Drive OneDrive For business Cloud storage and file sharing solution for businesses to store, access, and share files anytime and anywhere.

Storage architectures

  • HPC Media Rendering
    • 11/04/2020
    • 2 min read

    Optimize the media rendering process with a step-by-step HPC solution architecture from Azure that combines Azure CycleCloud and HPC Cache.

  • Medical Data Storage Solutions
    • 12/16/2019
    • 2 min read

    Store healthcare data effectively and affordably with cloud-based solutions from Azure. Manage medical records with the highest level of built-in security.

view all

Bulk data transfer

Google Cloud service Azure service Description
Transfer Appliance Azure Import/Export A data transport solution that uses secure disks and appliances to transfer large amounts of data. Also offers data protection during transit.
Transfer Appliance Azure Data Box Petabyte- to exabyte-scale data transport solution that uses secure data storage devices to transfer large amounts of data to and from Azure.

Application services

Google Cloud service Azure service Description
App Engine Azure App Service Managed hosting platform providing easy to use services for deploying and scaling web applications and services.
Apigee Azure API Management A turnkey solution for publishing APIs to external and internal consumers.

Web architectures

  • Architect scalable e-commerce web app
    • 12/16/2019
    • 1 min read

    The e-commerce website includes simple order processing workflows with the help of Azure services. Using Azure Functions and Web Apps, developers can focus on building personalized experiences and let Azure take care of the infrastructure.

  • Serverless web application
    • 5/28/2019
    • 16 min read

    This reference architecture shows a serverless web application, which serves static content from Azure Blob Storage and implements an API using Azure Functions.

view all

Miscellaneous

Area Google Cloud service Azure service Description
Workflow Composer Azure Logic Apps Serverless technology for connecting apps, data and devices anywhere, whether on-premises or in the cloud for large ecosystems of SaaS and cloud-based connectors.
Enterprise application services G Suite Microsoft 365 Fully integrated Cloud service providing communications, email, document management in the cloud and available on a wide variety of devices.
Gaming Game Servers Azure PlayFab Managed services for hosting dedicated game servers.
Hybrid Anthos Azure Arc For customers who want to simplify complex and distributed environments across on-premises, edge and multi-cloud, Azure Arc enables deployment of Azure services anywhere and extends Azure management to any infrastructure.
Blockchain Digital Asset Azure Confidential Ledger Tamperproof, unstructured data store hosted in trusted execution environments and backed by cryptographically verifiable evidence.
Monitoring Cloud Monitoring Application Insights Service that provides visibility into the performance, uptime, and overall health of cloud-powered applications.
Logging Cloud Logging Log Analytics Service for real-time log management and analysis.

Migration tools

Area Google Cloud service Azure Service Description
App migration to containers Migrate for Anthos Azure Migrate: App Containerization tool Modernize your application by migrating it to AKS or App Services containers.
Migration of virtual machines Migrate for Compute Engine Azure Migrate: Server Migration tool Migrate servers from anywhere to Azure.
VMware migration Google Cloud VMware Engine Azure VMware Solution Move or extend on-premises VMware environments to Azure.
Migration of databases Database Migration Service Azure Database Migration Service Fully managed service designed to enable seamless migrations from multiple database sources to Azure data platforms with minimal downtime.
Migration programs Google Cloud Rapid Assessment & Migration Program (RAMP) Azure Migration and Modernization Program Learn how to move your apps, data, and infrastructure to Azure using a proven cloud migration and modernization approach.
Server assessment Movere Increases business intelligence by accurately presenting entire IT environments within a single day.
Database assessment Data Migration Assistant It helps pinpoint potential problems blocking migration. It identifies unsupported features, new features that can benefit you after migration, and the right path for database migration.
Web app assessment and migration Web app migration assistant Assess on-premises web apps and migrate them to Azure.

Next steps

If you are new to Azure, review the interactive Core Cloud Services - Introduction to Azure module on Microsoft Learn training.