Private Cloud Platforms comparison & reviews

Summary
Rank
4th 2nd 1st
Score
0%
0%
User Reviews
Question?
Not Enabled Not Enabled Not Enabled
Analysis expand by Bhagyashri (Shri) Bhagvat Robert Spruill
 		Luciano Taranto
Select All
General expand
0%
0%
0%
  • Fully Supported
  • Limitation
  • Not Supported
  • Information Only
Pros
  • + Mature on-prem IaaS solution
  • + High-fidelity implementation of AWS APIs
  • + Proven at scale over years of operation
  • + Full-Fledged IaaS
  • + Mature Vendor
  • + Enterprise Solution
  • + True Disconnected Offering of Cloud System
  • + IaaS and PaaS Solution
  • + Enterprise Solution
Cons
  • - Recent acquisition concerns
  • - No administrative GUI
  • - Missing features beyond API compatability
  • - Complex
  • - Little PaaS Capability
  • - Heavily Dependent on Underlying Hardware
  • - Disconnected Mode Only Billed as Capacity
  • - New to Market
  • - Closed Solution
  Content  
  •  
Content Creator
AppScale
Luciano Taranto
Luciano Taranto
  •  
Overview
Integrated software stack with AWS-compatible IaaS services.
VMware Cloud Foundation is an integrated software stack which bundles VMware components (see details)
Azure Stack is Microsofts extension of Azure that provides a way to deliver Azure services in an on-premises environment. (see details)
  Assessment  
  •  
Maturity
Based on the Eucalyptus code-base that has been in production for over a decade, powering installations beyond 200K cores in size.
VMware is a strong contender in the marketplace and VCF is comprised of components that have been tried and tested in the datacenter
Azure Stack was made publicly available June of 2017 and builds off of Azure which has been available since February of 2010
  •  
Disconnected Offering
Can be deployed in a disconnected environment
VMware Cloud Foundation can be deployed on premises as a stack for a private cloud
Azure Stack can be deployed in disconnected mode
Infrastructure Services expand
0%
0%
0%
  Compute  
  •  
Virtual servers
Virtual servers are called cloud instances (equivalent to EC2 instances in AWS)
VMware Cloud Foundation bundles vSphere which includes the ESXi virtualization platform for creating and running virtual machines and virtual appliances
Azure Stack allows for the deployment of virtual servers called virtual machines
  •  
VM Type - General Purpose
Virtual machine hardware can be configured to take full advantage of the underlying hosts hardware. A collection of instance types can be customized in terms of vCPUs, memory, and disk.
You can configure the virtual machine hardware to take advantage of the underlying hosts hardware
General purpose VMs are Basic A, Standard A, Av2-series, D-series, DS-series, Dv2-series, DSv2-series
  •  
VM Type - Compute Optimized
Compute-optimized instance types can be customized by modifying the instance type
You can configure the virtual machine hardware to take advantage of the underlying hosts hardware. For compute optimized instances, you would increase the CPU resources
Computed optimized VMs are F-series, Fs-series, Fsv2-series
  •  
VM Type - Memory Optimized
Memory-optimized instance types can be customized by modifying the instance type
You can configure the virtual machine hardware to take advantage of the underlying hosts hardware. For memory optimized instances, you would increase the memory resources
Memory optimized VMs are D-series, DS-series, Dv2-series, DSv2-series
  •  
VM Type - Accelerated (GPU)
GPU instance types can be customized through advanced configuration only. No official documentation.
You can configure the virtual machine hardware to take advantage of the underlying hosts GPU hardware
There are no accelerated VM offerings with a GPU
  •  
Metadata URL
Metadata URL, featuring EC2-compatible information and thus compatible with cloud-init, is reachable from instances.
There is no built-in way to access this functionality. (see details)
While Azure has an Instance Metadata service, this functionality is not currently supported on Azure Stack
  •  
Rapid Provisioning
System components enable fast provisioning, particularly of EBS-backed instances.
You can easily deploy VMs using a wizard, template, or cloning another VM
You can easily and quickly deploy virtual machines using the Azure Stack console
  •  
Resize existing VM
EBS-backed instances can be resized after stopping by modifying InstanceType attribute via ModifyInstanceAttribute request (in CLI or Console).
You can easily resize an existing VM by changing its virtual hardware after creation such as CPU and memory
This functionality is supported in Azure Stack as well
  •  
Resource Management
Resources can be managed from either the Console or CLI/API
Resources can be managed from either the vSphere Web Client or the vSphere Client
The Azure Resource Manager provides a platform to manage all resources deployed within the Azure Stack
  •  
Scalability
AWS AutoScaling APIs are supported, with performance-based triggers for up- and down-scaling.
There is no vSphere functionality to easily scale up or down VMs from the console
Azure Stack includes scale sets which allow for automatic scaling of instances based on load
  •  
VM Imaging
Images (akin to AMIs and AKIs) can be created and shared with other cloud users. Existing instances can be saved into an image.
You can clone a virtual machine to a template which can then be used to deploy other virtual machines later
You can create and publish a custom marketplace item
  •  
VM Import/Export
Instances can be imported using raw disk or VHD formats. Exports done manually at hypervisor level. No API support for the operation exists.
You can import and export virtual machines in the OVF and OVA formats
You can import and export a disk used by a VM. In addition, you may be able to import/export a VM state but this is not confirmed (see details)
  •  
VM live migration
VMs can be live-migrated using CLI / API. In the event of a host failure instances to not automatically restart.
You can perform a live migration of a virtual machine without affecting availability, called a hot migration, using vMotion
Azure Stack supports live VM migration as a preventative measure to protect resources from failing hardware
  •  
VM to host affinity
Not supported. Can only be achieved by backend administration using instance migration.
You can create VM to host affinity rules within a DRS cluster
This capability is not supported by Azure Stack
  •  
VM to host anti-affinity
Not supported. Can only be achieved by backend administration using instance migration.
You can create VM to host anti-affinity rules within a DRS cluster
Azure Stack provides Availability Sets which replicate the VM across different hosts for high availability thus enforcing host anti-affinity
  Networking  
  •  
Cloud virtual networking
Overlays a virtual network on top of your existing network. Supports EDGE (EC2 Classic) and VPCMIDO (AWS VPC) modes.
VMware Cloud Foundation bundles NSX Data Center for vSphere which provides a platform programmatically managing software-defined virtual networks
The Network Resource Provider delivers a series of Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) features
  •  
Cross-premises connectivity
Support for AWS VPN Gateway is available but only when using VPCMIDO network mode.
The VCF platform is integrated into the customer datacenter and provides cross-premises connectivity to other customer networks
Cross-premises connectivity can be established in Azure Stacks which are deployed in the connected mode
  •  
DNS hostname resolution
DNS names for VM instances is supported automatically
You can install NSX Edge as an Edge Services Gateway (ESG) between networks which will then allow you to configure external DNS servers. (see details)
Azure Stack supports DNS hostname resolution
  •  
DNS zone management
No mention in the documentation
No mention in documentation. Functionality would need to be built up by the end-user and then VMware components can take advantage of it
Azure Stack supports the creation and management of DNS zones and records using both the console and the API
  •  
IP reassignment
Elastic IP and Elastic Network Interface functionality enables flexible IP address assignment.
You can statically set an VMs IP address from vSphere as well as specify a network protocol which is a pool of IPv4 and IPv6 addresses that vCenter will assign to virtual machines
You can reassign an IP by modifying the virtual network interface or by deleting it and creating a new one (Experience)
  •  
Load balancing
Elastic Load Balancer is an included service.
You can install NSX Edge as an Edge Services Gateway (ESG) and take advantage of the logical load balancer
The Azure Stack provides load balancing functionality
  •  
Network Interfaces
Elastic Network Interface functionality allows attaching and detaching of virtual NICs to instances
Virtual machines can have a variety of different network adapters added and configured
You can create and modify network interfaces attached to virtual machines (Experience)
  •  
Outbound Network Connectivity
Can be configured to connect to external networks with both EDGE (EC2 Classic) and VPCMIDO (Amazon VPC) networking modes.
You can connect virtual machines to the physical network
The Azure Stack is integrated into the customers datacenter and has outbound network connectivity to the customers border
  •  
Public IP Address
Public IP addresses can be assigned to instances either automatically or from a pool of Elastic IP addresses.
You can connect virtual machines to the physical network
Azure Stack supports IPv4 public addresses
  •  
SR-IOV support
Can be customized to use SR-IOV for instance networking by advanced configuration only. No official documentation.
There is a specific network adapter type (SR-IOV passthrough) designed to enable and support SR-IOV networking
No mention of this capability for Azure Stack
  •  
VM Security Groups
Instances can be added to a security group which has a specific network security policy applied to it.
Virtual Machines can be added to a security group which has a specific network security policy applied to it
VM Security groups are provided as network security groups
  •  
Virtual Network Peering
Ability to create a peering connection between two VPCs is supported.
You can set up cross-vCenter deployments as well as implement VPNs to access corporate and other cloud networks securely
Not supported as of 20190124
  Storage  
  •  
Object storage
Supports S3-compatible object storage using its Object Storage Gateway (OSG)
No mention in the documentation
Azure Stack provides blob storage for object storage
  •  
Block storage
Elastic Block Storage (EBS) provides block-level storage volumes that you can attach to instances.
vSphere provides a variety of different storage options and functionalities
Azure Stack supports page blobs which are the equivalent of block storage
  •  
Shared file storage
Shared file storage is not supported.
VMWare provides NFS but not SMB storage solutions
Azure Stack does not provide a SMB or NFS solution
  •  
Backup
Procedures for backing up and restoring everything except root disks of instance-store (ephemeral) instances are documented.
VCF provides backup and restore capability of components
Microsoft Azure Backup Server can be used to back up data within Azure Stack (see details)
  •  
Local Data Protection
Relies on replication features of underlying software and hardware (RAID and Ceph) for local data protection from hardware failures.
Virtual Volumes support replication capabilities for disaster recovery
Local data is encrypted and replicated across nodes in case of hardware failure
  •  
Remote Replication
No special functionality for automatic remote replication are provided, but backup process can include transfer of backed up data offsite for disaster recovery.
Virtual Volumes support replication capabilities for disaster recovery
The only replication option available is locally redundant storage
  •  
Snapshots
EBS snapshots are supported in both Web console and via CLI/API.
Virtual volumes provide snapshot capability to preserve the state and data of a virtual machine at a given point in time
Snapshots are supported for blobs (limited to 1000 per blob) but not for page blobs
  •  
Storage Architecture
Deployed as customer configurable two-level storage system. Support for HCI not documented.
VMware provides for a very flexible storage architechture
Azure Stack provides for either a hybrid or all-flash storage architechture
  •  
Storage QoS
Supports only a single storage class for both block and object storage.
You can configure the vSAN cluster (shared storage pool) to be either hybrid or all-flash (see details)
Azure Stack supports standard and premium storage
  •  
Storage Scalability
The Storage Controller (SC) and Object Storage Gateway (OSG) are molular and enable storage capacity to be dynamically allocated independent of the system.
You can expand an existing vSAN cluster by adding hosts or devices to existing hosts without disrupting ongoing operations
Azure Stack operators can increase the overall capacity of an existing scale unit by adding additional scale unit nodes
Platform Services expand
0%
0%
0%
  Compute  
  •  
Kubernetes Orchestration
No support for Kubernetes orchestration is available.
VMware Pivotal Container Service (PKS) provides an enterprise-grade Kubernetes solution which can be deployed on VMware Cloud Foundation
Azure Stack has a preview capability to deploy a Kubernetes cluster but it is not supported in the disconnected scenario
  •  
Serverless
No support for a serverless runtime is available.
This functionality is not offered by VCF but can be supported on top of VCF
App Service (available in PaaS offering) provides Azure Functions which executes event-driven serverless workloads
  Data  
  •  
Relational database
No support for DBaaS is available.
Customer needs to build this functionality on top of the infrastructure
Relational databases are supported through the use of optional resource providers SQL Server and MySQL Server
  •  
NoSQL—key/value storage
No support for a NoSQL database is available.
Customer needs to build this functionality on top of the infrastructure
Table storage is Microsofts NoSQL key/attribute store
  •  
Caching
No support for an in-memory cache service is available.
Customer needs to build this functionality on top of the infrastructure
No mention of Azure Cache for Redis being available but can use Redis marketplace item
  Developer Tools  
  •  
Message Queuing
No support for message queuing is available.
Customer needs to build this functionality on top of the infrastructure
Queue storage provides the capability for message queuing
  •  
Pub/Sub Messaging
No support for pub/sub messaging is available.
Customer needs to build this functionality on top of the infrastructure
Azure Stack does not currently support either Service Bus nor Event Grid which provide the pub/sub messaging capability in Azure
  •  
Web Applications
No support for a PaaS-type service for hosting Web applications is available.
Customer needs to build this functionality on top of the infrastructure
App Service is available on Azure Stack (additional PaaS offering) which provides web apps
  Analytics and IoT  
  •  
Internet of Things
No support for IoT services is available.
Customer needs to build this functionality on top of the infrastructure
Not much documentation out there but there appears to be a private preview for IoT Hub on Azure Stack which is fairly recent
  •  
Edge compute for IoT
No support for service that deploys cloud intelligence onto Edge devices is available.
Customer needs to build this functionality on top of the infrastructure
No solid documentation of this as a full capability but Azure Stack does support Azure Functions which is used for IoT Edge (see details)
  •  
Streaming data
No support for data streaming is available.
Customer needs to build this functionality on top of the infrastructure
Event Hubs was announced at Ignite 2018 as on the roadmap for Azure Stack but as of yet it is not available
Management Tools expand
0%
0%
0%
  Interface  
  •  
Console
Web Console supports most of the cloud user functionality that is also accessible via CLI/API.
In addition to console functionality such as vSphere, VCF includes SDDC Manager which provides a centralized user interface for configuration, provisioning, and lifecycle management of the stack
Azure Stack offers both an administration portal as well as a user (tenant) portal
  •  
API
AWS-compatible API is at the core of the product, with extensive support of many IaaS-level services, powering both the CLI and the Web Console.
The bundled components of VCF (vSphere, VSAN, and NSX) all provide API interfaces
Azure Stack offers a REST API as well as programmatic access through PowerShell/CLI
  Auditing  
  •  
Health / Performance / System Monitoring
Monitoring is available via the CloudWatch service, with metrics visible in the Web Console and available from the CLI.
vSphere provides a suite of health and performance monitoring tools for the infrastructure
Azure Stack offers monitoring services for compute including but not limited to host/guest metrics, performance counters, application, logs in addition to other sources
  •  
Event Logging
Logs are available to the operations team but must be configured using at the OS-level using technologies such as syslog.
VCF bundles vRealize Log Insight which covers infrastructure logs
Logs are collected both within the Azure Stack as well as by the infrastructure components themselves
  •  
Analytics
No support for analytics service is availalble.
VCF bundles vRealize Log Insight which aggregates infrastructure and application logs in order to provide actional dashboards and sophisticated analysis
Supported
  Automation  
  •  
Automated Tasks
CloudFormation doman-specific language and service enables users to orchestrate cloud application deployment and resource management.
VCF bundles vRealize Automation which can be used to deploy service blueprints and external technologies through Orchestrator plugins to automate IT tasks
Azure Functions provides an event-drive programming model which allows for the automated execution of tasks in response to events
  •  
Marketplace
No support for a marketplace of images is available.
While you can deploy VMs from templates, there is no central marketplace offerring third-party applications
Azure Stack supports a marketplace but it does not come preloaded with any images
  •  
Marketplace Syndication
No support for a marketplace syndication is available.
Since there is no marketplace, there is no syndication for those items
A cloud operator has the ability to download a curated list of items (see details)
Security & Compliance expand
0%
0%
0%
  AAA  
  •  
Authentication
User management and resource access control is available through Access and Identity Management (IAM) service.
Authentication can be implemented by integrating into the customers network and using their Active Directory instance
Azure Stack supports authentication through either Azure AD in connected scenarios or AD FS for disconnected scenarios
  •  
Multi-Factor Authentication
No support for MFA is available.
vCenter SSO also allows for two-factor authentication methods
Multi-factor authentication can be configured in connected scenarios using Azure AD and disconnected scenarios using AD FS
  •  
SSO / Integration
Support for LDAP/Active Directory integration (via periodic synchronizations) is supported.
The Platform Services Controller provides functionality for Single Sign-On into vCenter services and integrates with Windows Active Directory as well as other AD/LDAP schemes
Azure Stack can integrate with AD FS for user authentication and SSO
  •  
Access Control
Sophisticated access control policies are supported by the Identity and Access Management (IAM) service.
Access control can be implemented by integrating into the customers network and using their Active Directory instance
Access control is implemented using roles - owner, contributor, and reader
  CIA  
  •  
Encryption (Data at Rest)
System-wide at-rest encryption can be configured in the deployment.
Provides for storage-level encryption for data at rest
All Azure Stack infrastructure and tenant data is encrypted at rest using BitLocker
  •  
Encryption (Data in Transit)
Support for HTTPS endpoints can be manually configured on the UFS nodes
Provides network-level micro-segmentation, distributed firewalls, and VPN capability among others
Data in transit is encrypted both at the infrastructure level and for external endpoints using TLS 1.2
  •  
Key / Secret Management
Uses AWS-style access keys and secret keys for access to resources.
Customer needs to build this functionality on top of the infrastructure
Keys and secrets are managed using Key Vault
  Regulatory  
  •  
Multi-Tenancy
User identities are organized into accounts and are the equivalent to the AWS IAM account alias.
You can use VMware vCloud Director to support multi-tenancy on the VCF platform
Support for multi-tenancy is only available in connected scenarios deployed using Azure AD
  •  
Regulatory Compliance (PII, PHI, PCI-DSS, RMF, NIST SP 800-53 ,etc)
Can be manually hardened using avaiable security technical implementation guides for underlying OS only
VMware components meet specific 800-53 requirements
Microsoft provides guidance for controls they implement to achieve various regulatory standards including PCI-DSS, FedRAMP High, NIST SP 800-53, etc

Matrix Score

  •  
  •  
  • Amazon
  • VMware Inc
  • Microsoft Corp
  •  
  • 4 th
  • 2 nd
  • 1 st
X
Login to access your personal profile

Forgot your Password?
X
Signup with linkedin
X

Registered, but not activated? click here (resend activation link)

Login to access your personal profile

Receive new comparison alerts

Show me as community member

I agree to your Terms of services

GDPR