If you’re looking to migrate your ERP system to the Cloud, you’re in luck – you’ve got a ton of options. But between Google, Salesforce, AWS, Oracle, and Azure, this same amazing opportunity for choice can cause decision paralysis. With so many trusted industry players getting in on the Cloud game with fantastic products, it’s hard to know which option is truly the best for your enterprise.

While we’re not going to break down every Cloud option for you (seriously, the list is way too long!), we are going to walk you through a comparison of two of the biggest, most prominent options: Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services.

We’ve previously broken down the basics and features of AWS on our blog, so before we get into the comparison, let’s take a minute to go through Microsoft’s cloud star: Azure.

About Microsoft Azure

Since its release in 2010 as “Windows Azure’, Microsoft’s comprehensive Cloud offering has consistently been a leader in the IaaS space. Azure can easily integrate with almost any existing IT environment and supports several programming languages. Its 50 service offerings ensure a plethora of options and customization for businesses.

Like AWS, Azure runs on a network of data centers that span across 22 regions, each responsible for a specific location. Also like AWS, Azure offers extensive predictive analytics services, such as machine learning, Cortana analytics, and stream analytics. These allow data from the Cloud to be organized and synthesized into actionable intelligence for businesses.

Azure is an extremely popular Cloud choice for large, established businesses, with more than 66 percent of Fortune 500 companies relying on its services. The Azure cloud integrates seamlessly with a huge variety of infrastructure, operating systems, programming languages, frameworks, tools, databases and devices. While Azure is not a completely open-source platform, you do have the ability to: run Linux containers with Docker integration; build apps with JavaScript, Python, .NET, PHP, Java and Node.js; build back-ends for iOS, Android and Windows devices. As the result of a deal with Oracle, you can also deploy Oracle-based software on an Azure platform.

As part of their built-in support, Azure offers enterprise grade SLAs on services and 24*7 health monitoring and tech support. To ensure the highest level of security for their users, Azure built the largest network of secure private connections, data residency and encryption features.

By now, you’re probably thinking, “That sounds great! But also Amazon sounds great! This is extremely unhelpful. What was the point again?”

Trust us, we hear you. Both of these options are best in class products from companies that have defined and dominated the tech world from 20 years. It’s not an easy choice, but ultimately, you really can’t go wrong. When it comes down to it, AWS advantages are:

• Ease of use, intuitive management dashboard and APIs
• Massive scale and cutting-edge features
• Resource availability

Azure, on the other hand, offers:

• Better, bigger options for multi-cloud backup
• Superior hybrid-cloud offering
• Seamless integration with Microsoft and Oracle products

If you’re preparing your company for a Cloud implementation and migration, the most important thing you can do is your homework. Analyze your KPIs and determine what’s most important to you. Understand what your company requires from its cloud infrastructure now and in the future so you get a better ideal of your scalability needs. Know what your current systems look like and figure out how your Cloud needs to work with it.

Most importantly, select a vendor who can help your team throughout the entire process – from selection to implementation to adoption – to ensure minimal disruption to your day-to-day operations and maintain the highest integrity of your data.