AWS or Google Cloud Platform or Microsoft Azure: Which one is better for Machine Learning?

Omkar Zankar
9 min readOct 15, 2021

What's better for machine learning? Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud Platform? While these are two different cloud computing services, they are both used for machine learning. They both have their advantages and disadvantages - so which is best? And what should you use if you want the best of the two worlds? We'll try to answer these questions by examining them one-by-one.

Machine learning is the most computationally intensive sub-field of artificial intelligence. A machine learning job can use more computers than most people have in an entire house! The amount of computational resources this field requires really puts you into the realm of the supercomputing era. In short, it's a lot of power! So what you need is a way to run these computations.

Cloud computing has been around for a while now. It's been growing significantly over the years and both Amazon and Google have had a steady rise of popularity throughout this time. Therefore, they were both already available in the market when things started heating up in machine learning.

Both Amazon and Google Cloud offer several options for running machine learning jobs. However, there are differences between them that still stand at the present day. Let's take a look at these differences now.

Considering Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Amazon Web Services is the grand daddy of the cloud computing world - it's their cloud computing service that allows you to run your application on a variety of servers all over the globe. AWS is among the most popular cloud computing services in the market. Its popularity has been growing over the years and it's also expected that it will keep its position as the leading cloud service for a long time to come.

According to Amazon, AWS provides a number of machine learning APIs - which allow you to upload your models, create an instance of them and run scripts on them. With these APIs, you can scale your machine learning job from small datasets down to large-scale problems. This is a great feature as it allows you to run your machine learning job with a small budget if you have only a small dataset, or scale it up if you need more power.

Without a doubt, AWS machine learning modules provide developers with some of the most cutting edge tools for this new field. These machine learning modules usually come with an easy user interface and their implementations are fast and efficient. This can be helpful for both beginners and advanced users looking at using machine learning. In addition, AWS also gives you a lot of control over the implementation of your model. It will give to you a wide range of pre-defined options that you can choose from. This allows you to know what your model is going to look like when it is deployed.

In terms of user interface, Amazon Machine Learning modules have a very simple and easy-to-use UI. This UI has a grid-like layout in which the tools are arranged in a grid - which makes it very easy for beginners to use them. Resources and copying data in and out of the model, however, is a bit cumbersome.

Considering Google Cloud Platform (GCP)

On the other hand, GCP is an equally popular, but less known cloud service when it comes to machine learning. It's not hard to understand why - it was founded by engineers from Google and launched in 2006. GCP is also quite popular among businesses. It offers something that AWS does not - GCP offers its own set of machine learning SDKs. Moreover, Google Cloud also has an open source machine learning library in their cloud. This is Google Cloud's On-Premises Machine Learning Engine (Omni in-depth about OMNeT++).

So why does GCP have a different set of APIs than the rest? It's because GCP was created by Google - who has one of the most advanced machine learning algorithms in their possession. This means that when you are using Google's cloud, you are indirectly accessing their world-class machine learning algorithms.

GCP also offers its own set of machine learning tools that can be used to perform basic tasks like data tagging and processing of new data. Moreover, it has some basic APIs that can be used for more complex tasks like training an ML model. All these features - along with the plethora of tools offered by Google Cloud - help to make GCP a very attractive option.

To be more precise, GCP offers the following features that are unique to it.

It provides its own set of machine learning resources which are similar to AWS. However, it's less well-known among enterprise users. It offers a wide range of APIs that can be used for more complex tasks like training an ML model. It has a set of basic APIs for more complex tasks like data tagging and processing new data. It is less well-known among enterprise users.

In terms of user interface, Google Cloud UI is quite similar to AWS. It's used by all of Google's cloud products from Gmail to Google Docs. However, it does not have a simple dashboard like AWS - which is a little bit confusing for beginners.

Summing up…..

To sum up the differences between these two major cloud computing platforms, we can say that both serve different purposes and have very distinct advantages over each other. We're going to look at each of these features in more detail, so let's take a closer look at them.

AWS machine learning modules usually come with an easy user interface and their implementations are fast and efficient. This can be helpful for both beginners and advanced users looking at using machine learning. In addition, AWS also gives you a lot of control over the implementation of your model. It will give to you a wide range of pre-defined options that you can choose from. This allows you to know what your model is going to look like when it is deployed.

On the other hand, GCP's machine learning modules usually come with an easy user interface and their implementations are fast and efficient. This can be helpful for both beginners and advanced users looking at using machine learning. In addition, GCP also provides you with a lot of control over the implementation of your model. It will give to you a wide range of pre-defined options that you can choose from. This allows you to know what your model is going to look like when it is deployed.

GCP also offers some things that other cloud service providers do not have. It has its own set of machine learning tools that are specifically built for this cloud service. And lastly, it has a set of pre-defined APIs that allow you to do more complex tasks like training an ML model. All these help to make GCP a very attractive option for those who need such tools and capabilities in their data processing and analysis process.

Back to our main question - how is GCP different from AWS when it comes to machine learning? The answer is quite simple - in regards to machine learning, GCP specializes in the same things that AWS does - which are not only data processing but also data visualization. This is because GCP provides Google Cloud's On-Premises Machine Learning Engine (OMNeT++) in its cloud. OMNeT++ ships with its own set of toolkits which enables easy development of ML models with incredible speeds. With the help of this toolkit, GCP also offers a wide range of models that can be used for various machine learning tasks.

As you can see, both AWS and GCP have their own advantages and disadvantages - although both offer a lot of possibilities and opportunities to their users. Now, let's take a closer look at other cloud service providers and what they can do for you.

Google Cloud Platform (GCP) Versus Microsoft Azure

Microsoft's Azure is another major cloud computing service. Like AWS and GCP, it also offers a wide range of services to its users. These services include data storage, data processing, and data analysis. Some of these services are very close to AWS - which means that you can still use machine learning with the help of this provider's cloud service. Let's talk about these similarities in more detail.

Here Are The Similarities...

Both Microsoft Azure and AWS offer common machine learning tools which can be used for basic tasks. Like AWS, Azure also has its own data processing service, which includes a lot of pre-defined tools that can be used to process data. That being said, both services do not offer much in terms of machine learning APIs like GCP does.

Moreover, both services are not the most preferred cloud computing providers when it comes to ML. Although they do have a huge number of users worldwide, they don't have as much experience as GCP and AWS when it comes to machine learning. This makes sense as both of these providers have been around for a longer period.

To be more specific, Microsoft's Azure offers the following features that are very similar to those available in AWS.

They offer a wide range of common machine learning tools that can be used for basic tasks. They have their own data processing service, which includes a lot of pre-defined tools that can be used to process data. They do not offer much in terms of machine learning APIs like GCP does.

In terms of user interface, Microsoft Azure is quite similar to AWS. If you are familiar with the way AWS looks and how it works, you will find Azure very easy to use. It also comes with a wide range of tools for data visualization - just like AWS does.

The Azure Machine Learning service is also similar to AWS's Machine Learning service. It can be used for data loading, feature engineering, model development, and more. However, unlike the AWS ML service, it does not offer any model deployment functionality or support for custom models - which means that you will have to use an external library if your code is not written using R.

Microsoft also has its own data processing tools called CORE (Computational Analytics for Reproducible Experiments). This service also has its own set of pre-defined techniques which can be used for any kind of data processing task. However, it does not offer any ML models like GCP does - which is something that it shares with AWS.

When it comes to reproducible experiments, Azure's CORE service is extremely similar to AWS's RDS (Redshift) service. Both of these services give you the ability to track all data changes and changes in experiments, as well as interesting outcomes and reproducibility metrics for your model. This allows you to check whether your model's performance is the same when you analyze it using different data.

The similarity between Azure and AWS also goes further than just machine learning. Both providers offer the same set of common ML models that can be used for various tasks. These models help to make your development process easier, faster, and more efficient. Besides these common ML models, both providers also offer some custom-made machine learning models which you can use for specific needs.

The same goes for the Azure Cognitive Services (COGNITY) service. This resource is similar to AWS's Kinesis stream data service which allows users to continuously capture data and analyze it with the help of pre-defined ML models.

Speaking of COGNITY, it also has its own set of pre-defined ML models that can be used for various tasks. These include classification, regression, anomaly detection, time series forecasting, sequential pattern recognition, and more. The models are similar to those offered by AWS, but the only difference is that you have to download them from Azure's website.

Unlike AWS, Azure does not offer any ML models pre-built for specific purposes. This means that you will have to download them from their website, or build your own model using an external library. However, unlike AWS, Azure does have a wider range of pre-defined ML models - which makes it an attractive option for those who are looking for highly customizable ML models for specific tasks.

Conclusion

To sum up the similarities between GCP and AWS, it should be clear that both of these cloud computing services are definitely worth trying out. However, the only big difference between them is that GCP does not offer any ML models built for specific machine learning needs. If you are planning to use GCP for your machine learning projects, make sure that you know which ML models you will need. Otherwise, this can cause some problems later on.

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