Core services: compute, storage, databases and networking
Every provider has hundreds of services, but most systems are built on four categories. The good news: the concepts are the same, only the names differ:
| Service | AWS | Azure | Google Cloud |
|---|---|---|---|
| Virtual machine | EC2 | Virtual Machines | Compute Engine |
| Object storage (images, backups) | S3 | Blob Storage | Cloud Storage |
| Managed SQL database | RDS | Azure SQL Database | Cloud SQL |
| Virtual private network | VPC | Virtual Network | VPC |
| Serverless functions | Lambda | Functions | Cloud Run functions |
| Running containers | ECS / EKS | AKS | GKE |
Containers such as Docker package an app with everything it needs into one box that runs the same anywhere: your laptop, the company server, or the cloud. Kubernetes manages hundreds of containers automatically.
Storage types: object storage for huge volumes of files, images and backups at low cost, block storage like a virtual server's hard disk, and file storage for folders shared across machines.
Watch outYour SQL skills from the database track carry straight over: a managed database is ordinary MySQL, PostgreSQL or SQL Server, only the provider runs the server and backups for you.