Cloud Computing
Cloud platforms: AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, OCI
Four vendors dominate the public cloud, and they offer the same building blocks under four sets of names, grouped in four different ways and certified along four different ladders. Choosing one is usually the first cloud decision a learner or a team makes, and it is settled better by the local job market and whatever an organisation already runs than by any feature table.
Why this topic exists: The four platforms differ in naming, pricing, regions and certification ladders; choosing one is the first decision most learners and teams make (vendor exam guides; the four certification hubs on this site).
Same ideas, different labels
Once the fundamentals are clear, moving between platforms is mostly a matter of translation. The table pairs the services a beginner meets first. It lists names, not quality: every row describes a mature product on all four platforms, and none of them is a reason to prefer one vendor.
| Building block | AWS | Azure | Google Cloud | OCI |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Virtual machines | EC2 | Azure Virtual Machines | Compute Engine | OCI Compute |
| Object storage | S3 | Blob Storage | Cloud Storage | Object Storage |
| Private network | VPC | Virtual Network | VPC | Virtual Cloud Network |
| Managed Kubernetes | EKS | AKS | GKE | OKE |
| Functions | Lambda | Azure Functions | Cloud Run functions | OCI Functions |
| Resource grouping | Accounts and organisations | Subscriptions, resource groups, management groups | Projects and folders | Tenancies and compartments |
The last row matters more than it looks. How a platform groups resources shapes billing, permissions and the blast radius of a mistake. Azure's hierarchy of management groups, subscriptions and resource groups appears in its entry exam for that reason. AWS separates workloads into accounts gathered under an organisation, Google Cloud into projects inside folders, and Oracle into compartments within a tenancy. A team that copies one platform's layout onto another usually ends up with permissions nobody can explain.
What actually differs between them
Beyond naming, the platforms diverge in three places a practitioner feels. Identity comes first: Azure builds on Microsoft Entra ID, which many organisations already use for staff sign-in, while the other three run their own IAM systems with separate policy languages. Next comes the shape of the catalogue: AWS offers the most services, Google Cloud is closely tied to its data and Kubernetes tooling, and OCI puts Oracle's database at the centre. Last are the certification ladders. AWS runs foundational, associate, professional and specialty tiers. Microsoft names its tiers fundamentals, associate and expert, and requires the Azure Administrator certificate before its architect expert credential. Google offers an associate engineer exam and a professional tier led by the Professional Cloud Architect. Oracle gives its foundations exam away.
Regions and pricing complete the picture. Each provider opens locations on its own schedule, and not every service is offered in every region, so a workload tied to one country's data rules may face a shorter menu than the headline catalogue suggests. Pricing follows the same metered logic on all four, yet units, free allowances and discount schemes differ enough that comparing a realistic bill means running each provider's calculator against an honest estimate of usage, not glancing at list rates.
Multi-cloud is real, but mostly by accident: an acquisition brings a second provider, or one team picked differently years ago. Deliberately building one application across two platforms doubles the knowledge needed to run it. For a learner the sensible order is depth on one platform, then a reading knowledge of a second, which the table above makes quicker than it sounds.
Next to this topic
- Cloud fundamentalsService and deployment models, regions and availability zones, elasticity and shared responsibility: the vocabulary every foundational exam tests first (AZ-900 Cloud Concepts; CLF-C02; NIST SP 800-145).
- Cloud governance and landing zonesAccounts, subscriptions and projects, management groups, policy, tagging, budgets and locks: how an estate is organised before anything is deployed (AZ-900 Azure management and governance, its one of the three areas, at 30 to 35 per cent; the Well-Architected security and cost pillars).
- Containers and KubernetesContainers are the unit of deployment in cloud-native work and Kubernetes the orchestrator; CNCF's Runtime and Orchestration categories and the CKA exam define the field.
- Serverless and event-driven computingFunctions, managed queues and event buses change how systems are designed and billed; SAA-C03 and the AWS Serverless knowledge badge treat it as its own discipline.
- Cloud storage and managed databasesObject, block and file storage and the managed relational and NoSQL services are the questions that reach into all four SAA-C03 domains in the associate exams (SAA-C03; AZ-104; DP-900 for the data side).
- Cloud networkingVirtual networks, subnets, load balancers, DNS, content delivery and hybrid connectivity are where on-premises networking meets the cloud (SAA-C03; AZ-104; both vendors also sell a networking specialty exam).
- Cloud architecture and the well-architected pillarsDesigning for reliability, performance, security and cost is what the architect exams certify (SAA-C03's four domains; AZ-305; Professional Cloud Architect) and what the Well-Architected Framework's six pillars name.
- Infrastructure as code and automationDeclaring environments in code (Terraform, CloudFormation, Bicep, Pulumi, Ansible) is CNCF's Provisioning category and the operating habit every cloud team is hired for (AZ-400; SAP-C02).
- Cloud operations and observabilityRunning what was built: monitoring, logging, tracing, alerting and reliability engineering (CNCF Observability and Analysis; the Well-Architected Operational Excellence pillar; the CloudOps exam, formerly SysOps).
- Cloud cost and FinOpsMeasured, variable cost is one of NIST's five cloud characteristics and the commonest failure in practice; the FinOps Framework (Inform, Optimize, Operate) and SAA-C03's cost-optimised domain make it a discipline, not an afterthought.
- Cloud migration and hybridMoving existing workloads (rehost, replatform, refactor) and running hybrid estates is a large part of enterprise cloud work, and the architect exams test it; the hosting guides cover the small end of a move.
Concepts to know
Glossary entries with the reason each one matters here.
- IaaS
What all four platforms sell first: machines, networks and disks by the hour.
- Object Storage
S3, Blob, Cloud Storage and OCI Object Storage are the same idea with four names.
Certifications that test it
Vendor exams and free certificates; facts, cost and the preparation path are on each page, and the certifications hub has them all.
- Google Cloud · ACEGoogle Cloud Associate Cloud EngineerGoogle Cloud's hands-on associate exam.
- Microsoft · AZ-104Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator AssociateAzure's administrator exam.
- AWS · CLF-C02AWS Certified Cloud PractitionerAWS's platform overview at exam level.
- Oracle · 1Z0-1085-26 · freeOracle Cloud Infrastructure Foundations AssociateOCI's platform overview, free.
Tools of the trade
- Amazon Web Services
The public cloud whose vocabulary the others are compared to.
- Microsoft Azure
Microsoft's cloud, tied to the Microsoft 365 estate.
- Google Cloud
Google's cloud, strongest in data and Kubernetes.
Frequently asked
- Which cloud platform is best?
- None in general. Each has regions, services and a support model that suit some organisations better than others, and all four run large production estates. For a learner, the useful question is which platform the employers or projects you care about already use.
- How hard is it to switch from AWS to Azure, or the reverse?
- Easier than learning the first one. The concepts carry over, and most effort goes into the new names, the identity model and the way resources are grouped. Expect a few weeks of reading and hands-on work before the second platform feels familiar.
- Is Oracle Cloud worth learning?
- If you work with Oracle databases or ERP systems, clearly yes, because Oracle builds its cloud as the natural home for them. Its foundations exam carries no fee, which makes it a low-risk way to test the platform even if it is not your main one.
Courses in the directory
824 courses are filed here; the top 6 by our ranking, details and the provider link on each course page.
Last reviewed 26 September 2026 · Getting Digital