Chapter 10 — Cloud Providers Deep Dive

The "Big Three" (AWS, GCP, Azure) plus strong alternatives. Understanding their service ecosystems lets you pick the right provider and avoid vendor lock-in traps.

Service Mapping Across Providers

CategoryAWSGCPAzureDigitalOcean
Compute (VMs)EC2Compute EngineVirtual MachinesDroplets
ContainersECS / EKSCloud Run / GKEACI / AKSDOKS / App Platform
ServerlessLambdaCloud FunctionsAzure FunctionsFunctions (beta)
Object StorageS3Cloud StorageBlob StorageSpaces
SQL DatabaseRDS / AuroraCloud SQL / SpannerAzure SQLManaged Databases
NoSQLDynamoDBFirestore / BigtableCosmos DBMongoDB (managed)
CDNCloudFrontCloud CDNAzure CDNSpaces CDN
DNSRoute 53Cloud DNSAzure DNSDNS (basic)
Load BalancerALB / NLBCloud Load BalancingAzure LBLoad Balancers
SecretsSecrets ManagerSecret ManagerKey Vault—
MonitoringCloudWatchCloud MonitoringAzure MonitorBuilt-in metrics
IaCCloudFormationDeployment ManagerARM / BicepTerraform only

Pricing Models

ModelDescriptionSavingsCommitment
On-DemandPay by the hour/second, no commitment0% (baseline)None
Reserved / Committed1-3 year commitment for lower rate30-72%1-3 years
Spot / PreemptibleUnused capacity, can be terminated anytime60-90%None (but unreliable)
Savings PlansCommit to $/hr spend, flexible instance types20-50%1-3 years

Hands-On: Full Stack on AWS

Deploying a web app with EC2 + RDS + S3 + CloudFront:

# Architecture:
# CloudFront (CDN) → ALB → EC2 (app) → RDS (PostgreSQL)
#                         → S3 (static assets/uploads)

# Step 1: Create VPC with public/private subnets
aws ec2 create-vpc --cidr-block 10.0.0.0/16
# (In practice, use Terraform — shown in Chapter 14)

# Step 2: Launch RDS in private subnet
aws rds create-db-instance \
  --db-instance-identifier myapp-db \
  --db-instance-class db.t3.micro \
  --engine postgres \
  --engine-version 16 \
  --master-username admin \
  --master-user-password "$(openssl rand -base64 24)" \
  --allocated-storage 20 \
  --no-publicly-accessible \
  --vpc-security-group-ids sg-xxxxx

# Step 3: Create S3 bucket for assets
aws s3 mb s3://myapp-assets-prod
aws s3api put-bucket-policy --bucket myapp-assets-prod \
  --policy '{"Statement":[{"Effect":"Allow","Principal":"*","Action":"s3:GetObject","Resource":"arn:aws:s3:::myapp-assets-prod/*"}]}'

# Step 4: Create CloudFront distribution
aws cloudfront create-distribution \
  --origin-domain-name myapp-assets-prod.s3.amazonaws.com \
  --default-root-object index.html

# Step 5: Set up ALB + EC2 (use launch template + auto-scaling group)
# Step 6: Configure Route 53 to point domain to CloudFront

Hands-On: Full Stack on DigitalOcean

# Architecture:
# Load Balancer → Droplet(s) → Managed PostgreSQL
#                            → Spaces (S3-compatible storage)

# Step 1: Create a Droplet
doctl compute droplet create myapp-web \
  --image ubuntu-22-04-x64 \
  --size s-1vcpu-2gb \
  --region fra1 \
  --ssh-keys YOUR_KEY_FINGERPRINT

# Step 2: Create managed database
doctl databases create myapp-db \
  --engine pg \
  --version 16 \
  --size db-s-1vcpu-1gb \
  --region fra1 \
  --num-nodes 1

# Step 3: Create Spaces bucket (S3-compatible)
# Done via web console or s3cmd with DO endpoint

# Step 4: Create load balancer
doctl compute load-balancer create \
  --name myapp-lb \
  --region fra1 \
  --forwarding-rules "entry_protocol:https,entry_port:443,target_protocol:http,target_port:3000,certificate_id:YOUR_CERT" \
  --droplet-ids DROPLET_ID

# Step 5: Point domain DNS to load balancer IP

Which Provider to Choose

AWS: Largest ecosystem, most services, best for enterprise. Steep learning curve, complex pricing.
GCP: Best for data/ML, Kubernetes (they invented it), clean APIs. Smaller market share.
Azure: Best for Microsoft/.NET shops, enterprise AD integration. Complex portal.
DigitalOcean: Simplest UX, predictable pricing, great docs. Fewer services, smaller scale.
Hetzner: Best price/performance in EU. Minimal managed services but unbeatable value.

Rule of thumb: Start with DigitalOcean or Hetzner for simplicity. Move to AWS/GCP when you need managed services (ML, analytics, complex networking) that simpler providers don't offer.

Cost Calculator Links