Amazon Web Services vs Heroku

2020. AWS launches Amazon AppFlow, its new SaaS integration service


AWS launched Amazon AppFlow, a new integration service that makes it easier for developers to transfer data between AWS and SaaS applications like Google Analytics, Marketo, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Slack, Snowflake and Zendesk. Like similar services, including Microsoft Azure’s Power Automate, for example, developers can trigger these flows based on specific events, at pre-set times or on-demand. Unlike some of its competitors, though, AWS is positioning this service more as a data transfer service than a way to automate workflows, and, while the data flow can be bi-directional, AWS’s announcement focuses mostly on moving data from SaaS applications to other AWS services for further analysis. For this, AppFlow also includes a number of tools for transforming the data as it moves through the service.


2019. AWS launches fully-managed backup service for business


Amazon’s AWS cloud platform has added a new service Backup, that allows companies to back up their data from various AWS services and their on-premises apps. To back up on-premises data, businesses can use the AWS Storage Gateway. The service allows users to define their various backup policies and retention periods, including the ability to move backups to cold storage (for EFS data) or delete them completely after a certain time. By default, the data is stored in Amazon S3 buckets. Most of the supported services, except for EFS file systems, already feature the ability to create snapshots. Backup essentially automates that process and creates rules around it, so it’s no surprise that the pricing for Backup is the same as for using those snapshot features (with the exception of the file system backup, which will have a per-GB charge).


2017. AWS launched browser-based IDE for cloud developers



Amazon Web Services launched a new browser-based IDE, AWS Cloud9. It isn’t all that different from similar IDEs and editors like Sublime Text, but as AWS stressed during today’s keynote, it allows for collaborative editing and it’s also deeply integrated into the AWS ecosystem. The tool comes with built-in support for languages like JavaScript, Python, PHP and others. Cloud9 also includes pre-installed debugging tools. AWS argues that this is the first “cloud native” IDE, though I’m sure some of its competitors will take issue with this description. Either way, though, Cloud9 is deeply integrated with AWS and developers can create cloud environments and start new instances right from the tool.


2017. AWS introduced per-second billing for EC2 instances



Over the last few years, some alternative cloud platforms moved to more flexible billing models (mostly per-minute billing) and now AWS is one-upping many of them by moving to per-second billing for its Linux-based EC2 instances. This new per-second billing model will apply to on-demand, reserved and spot instances, as well as provisioned storage for EBS volumes. Amazon EMR and AWS Batch are also moving to this per-second model. it’s worth noting, though, that there is a one-minute minimum charge per instance and that this doesn’t apply to machines that run Windows or some of the Linux distributions that have their own separate hourly charges.


2017. AWS offers a virtual machine with over 4TB of memory



Amazon’s AWS launched its largest EC2 machine (in terms of memory size) yet: the x1e.32xlarge instance with a whopping 4.19TB of RAM. Previously, EC2’s largest instance only featured just over 2TB of memory. These machines feature quad-socket Intel Xeon processors running at 2.3 GHz, up to 25 Gbps of network bandwidth and two 1,920GB SSDs. There are obviously only a few applications that need this kind of memory. It’s no surprise, then, that these instances are certified to run SAP’s HANA in-memory database and its various tools and that SAP will offer direct support for running these applications on these instances. It’s worth noting that Microsoft Azure’s largest memory-optimized machine currently tops out at just over 2TB and that Google already calls it quits at 416GB of RAM.


2015. Heroku launches application development platform for Enterprise



Heroku, the Salesforce-owned, application development and hosting platform, announced a new product line called Heroku Enterprise. It’s geared for big companies that want to develop the kind of modern applications seen at startups while providing the type of features that many large enterprises want, including security features and access control. Essentially, the product line claims that large enterprises can now have it both ways: a way to make the type of applications that are typically derived from an agile-development process (with access to trendy technology like containers and new database services) all while being monitored under the iron fist of the enterprise. Kudos to Heroku if it can pull that off. With Heroku Enterprise, organizations can supposedly now monitor all their developers, applications and resources under one interface.


2014. AWS now supports Docker containers



Amazon announced the preview availability of EC2 Container Services – the new service for managing Docker containers that boosts Amazon Web Services support for hybrid cloud. This bring the benefits of easy development management, portability between environments, lower risk in deployments, smoother maintenance and management of application components, and the ability for it all to work together. AWS isn’t the first cloud provider to offer Docker’s open source engine support. Google has extended its support for Docker containers with its new Google Container Engine powered by its own Kubernetes, announced just last week during the Google Cloud Platform Live event. And, back in August, Microsoft announced its support for Kubernetes in managing Docker containers in Azure.


2014. Salesforce connects Heroku to its cloud



Salesforce finally connected the Heroku cloud application platform (which it acquired in 2010) to Force.com with the release of the Heroku Connect tool. Heroku and Force.com represent two vastly different development systems based on completely different programming languages—but Salesforce now has a working bi-directional connection between them. Instead of a deep integration with Heroku, Salesforce customers can connect Heroku apps to Salesforce without the need for extensive recoding, which is a potentially expensive and time-consuming affair. Salesforce knows it needs to show off tools like Heroku Connect to attract developers and convince them Force.com will work with popular Web toolkits like Node.js, Ruby on Rails and Java.


2014. Amazon and Microsoft drop cloud prices



Cloud computing is becoming cheaper and cheaper. So, if you once (for example, a year ago) calculated whether it was cost-effective to migrate your IT infrastructure to the cloud and decided that it was still expensive, then recalculate again. Since then, cloud platform reduced prices two or three times. Another round of happening now. Since tomorrow  Amazon S3 cloud storage pricing will decrease by 6-22 % (depending on the used space), and the cost of cloud server hard drives (Amazon EBS) will fall by 50%. And a month later Microsoft's cloud platform Windows Azure  will reduce its prices by 20% to keep them a little lower than Amazon's. So think once again, why buy an in-house server if the cost of the cloud tends to zero.


2012. Google and Amazon reduce cloud storage prices. Launch new cloud services



Competition - is good for customers. On Monday, Google reduced prices for its Google Cloud Storage by over 20%, and today, in response, Amazon has reduced prices for its S3 storage by 25%. Obviously, in the near future, Microsoft will also reduce prices for Windows Azure, to bring them to the competitive level - about $0.09/month per GB. The same story occured in March when Amazon lowered prices, and then Microsoft and Google aligned their pricing with Amazon. Because on the cloud platforms market the price is no longer a competitive advantage, but your pricing is higher than the competition - is't a big disadvantage. Some experts already doubt that Amazon and the contenders are earning something on selling gigabytes and gigahertzs. Like in case with the mobile market, the main task of cloud vendors - is to hook up large companies and SaaS-providers to their platforms, even if they should sell computing resources at a loss. ***