Microsoft Azure has nosed ahead of AWS in the public cloud adoption stakes, according to a report from IT Management outfit Flexera.
The 2022 State of the Cloud Report survey will have brought smiles to the teams at Redmond and Amazon, and less cheer to Oracle's cloud crew, which continued to languish in fourth place behind Google.
The key takeaway on the Azure front is its leadership with enterprise users, with 80 percent of respondents adopting Microsoft's public cloud, up from 76 percent the previous year. This was just ahead of AWS, which claimed a 77 percent adoption rate, down from 79 percent a year earlier. Some way behind was Google, with 48 percent, followed by Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, which tumbled to 27 percent from 32 percent a year ago.
The report indicates Azure is ahead of AWS for breadth of adoption, although Google has the highest percentage for experimentation (at 23 percent). There was some cause for optimism at Oracle with the highest percentage (12 percent) planning to use its cloud, meaning there is every chance its showing in the survey could improve in the coming years.
That Microsoft should be starting to overhaul Amazon in the enterprise cloud adoption stakes is not entirely surprising, considering the popularity of Microsoft 365, but perhaps more surprising is that it has taken this long.
AWS is still leading the SMB public cloud pack, although it still experienced a slight drop in adoption rate, from 72 percent to 69 percent while Azure jumped from 48 percent to 59 percent. Oracle also saw strong growth, nearly doubling its adoption rate from 15 percent to 28 percent year on year.
The report noted that "as organizations mature, they tend to gravitate toward market leaders" and that Azure was outperforming AWS with light and moderate users and was closing in on the Amazon cloud for heavy usage.
The report also noted an increase in wasted cloud spend; respondents estimated their organizations wasted 32 percent of the cloud spend this time around, up from 30 percent the previous year. The actual figure might be higher "as many organizations tend to underestimate their amount of waste," according to the report.
Expertise, security and management were the big challenges reported by respondents, and for those taking a more private than public cloud approach, Microsoft's Azure Stack was top, with 37 percent adoption for currently running workloads over all organizations, followed by VMware vSphere. Interestingly, for enterprises, OpenStack tumbled from 31 percent of respondents who "currently use" it last year to just 16 percent this time around.
With hybrid and now multicloud approaches finding favour, private clouds will continue to play an important role in many organisations. Particularly those where security or sovereignty is an issue and execs want to keep data and processes close.
The report itself was generated from a survey of 753 professionals from around the world with the majority coming from the United States. ®
FAQs
How Azure Could Overtake AWS By 2026. Azure could take over the cloud services lead from AWS by 2026. However, in the fourth quarter of 2023, AWS was still the leader. AWS lost two percentage points of market share to 31% while Azure added two percentage points to 24%, according to CRN.
What is the advantage of Azure over AWS? ›
Besides the benefits of PaaS, [Azure] has a built-in mechanism that makes VMs easy to scale so operating costs are lower than AWS.” Kensuke Suzuki, Chief Data Officer, Linked Brain Inc. “Azure made it really simple to implement security.
Which is better for career Azure or AWS? ›
Azure-certified individuals are typically sought for positions like Cloud Architects, Administrators, and Developers. In terms of salary, AWS-certified professionals can expect a slightly higher pay scale due to the broader usage and adoption of AWS services.
Why Azure is growing faster than AWS? ›
Microsoft's AI growth is helping its cloud business weaken Amazon's lead. Microsoft's cloud is growing significantly faster than Amazon Web Services of late, thanks in part to its cozy OpenAI relationship. Analysts estimate Azure, which was about half as big as AWS five years ago, is now three-quarters its size.
Is AWS losing to Azure? ›
AWS remains the global market share leader in public cloud services at 33%, followed by Azure at 13% and Google Cloud at 6%.
Who gets paid more Azure or AWS? ›
AWS Vs Azure Certification Salary Comparison
Some recent statistics show that AWS certifications will give an average hike of 25.9% in salary to non-certified professionals. On the other hand, Azure-certified professionals earn an average of 18.1% more than non-certified professionals.
Why do people prefer Azure over AWS? ›
AWS has better interoperability in comparison with Azure with open source communities such as Linux, Jenkins and GitHub. On the other hand, Azure has better native integration with Microsoft technologies and tools.
Why companies choose AWS over Azure? ›
When the two are compared, Azure is more costly. Azure is the finest alternative for a robust Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) provider and even a Windows integration. If a company needs infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) or a wide range of tools, AWS may be the ideal option.
What is the biggest difference between AWS and Azure? ›
AWS vs Azure: Key Differences
AWS has a Virtual Private Cloud, while Azure has a virtual network cloud. So, both platforms have different cloud configurations and services. AWS is available only in 61 zones, whereas Azure has availability in 140 zones.
Which is more in demand Azure or AWS? ›
According to CRN, AWS is the leading Cloud service provider, with a market share of over 31%, but Azure is catching up quickly, with nearly 24%. This comparison is essential in 2024, as both the Cloud giants are rapidly expanding and there is no turning back.
The average Microsoft Azure salary ranges from approximately ₹8.4 Lakhs per year for a Technical Support Engineer to ₹47.4 Lakhs per year for a Senior Software Engineer. Salary estimates are based on 219 Microsoft Azure salaries received from various employees of Microsoft Azure.
Is AWS or Azure the future? ›
Microsoft Azure, one of three major cloud providers, provides clients with storage, analytics, and networking services. As the second-largest platform behind AWS, Azure is rapidly expanding and quickly closing in on AWS in terms of market share. Azure is the cloud of choice for 80% of Fortune 500 companies.
What is the fastest growing cloud provider? ›
The new challenger in cloud computing is Oracle , which reported 66% growth in the August quarter, citing business from Maersk, Skanska and Starbucks . In the prior quarter, Oracle's business rose 76%.
Why is Azure the best cloud? ›
Azure is popular for several reasons its robustness in enterprise solutions, compatibility with Microsoft products, a wide array of services like AI, IoT, and analytics, and its global presence with data centers in many regions. other providers like AWS and Google Cloud offer unique advantages too.
Which cloud platform is best? ›
Google Cloud
Google Cloud dedicates a lot of resources to security. It uses artificial intelligence and machine learning systems to detect and counter cyber threats. Users have access to a host of cybersecurity features to keep sensitive data secure. This platform is famous for its high performance.
Is Azure bigger then AWS? ›
Amazon's AWS and Microsoft's Azure are the big boys of the cloud computing world, even though AWS is much bigger than Azure. How much bigger? Well, AWS's server capacity is about 6 times larger than the next 12 competitors combined.
Is Azure more reliable than AWS? ›
In the real world "better" is not part of the decision tree when a company selects its cloud provider. These are always commercial decisions. That said, having done hundreds of projects over the last 15 years on AWS and Azure, they're both the same. Equally good, equally bad.
Is Azure DevOps going away? ›
There is concerns that EOL for Azure DevOps is 2028 and now its 2024 and the roadmap ahead is not mention any new Azure DevOps Server 2024. This starting to think that we need to move and find other tooling on-premise for git, agile, testing and artifacts.
