The document compares 4 major cloud service providers: Rackspace Cloud, Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Salesforce. It summarizes their key offerings such as the year launched, cloud services provided, programming interfaces, operating systems supported, pricing models, security features, service level agreements and other important information. Overall the document provides a high-level overview of the capabilities and services of these major cloud computing platforms.

1. Cloud *Rackspace Cloud *Amazon AWS *Microsoft Azure * Salesforce.com
service
provider
Launched *2005 *2006 *2009 *2000
Cloud *IaaS *PaaS and IaaS *PaaS and IaaS *SaaS and PaaS
service
Control *Application *Application *Application *Application
interface Programming Programming Programming Programming
Interface (API) Interface (API) Interface (API) Interface (API)
*Web based service *Command *Command Line *Web based service
Line
Operating *Arch 2011.07 *Debian *Windows 7 *Not Available
System *Cent OS *Fedora *Windows Vista
*Debian *Gentoo Linux *Windows 8
*Fedora *Red Hat *Windows Server
*Gentoo Enterprise 2008
*Red Hat Linux
Enterprise *Open Solaris
*Ubuntu Linux *Oracle
*Windows Server Enterprise
2008 Linux
*SUSE Linux
*Ubuntu Linux
*Windows
Server 2003
*Windows
Server 2008
*Amazon Linux
AMI
*openSUSE

2. Linux
Programmi *Java *Java *ASP.NET *Apex
ng *PHP *PHP *VB.NET *Java
Language *Python *Python *PHP *VB.Net
*Ruby *Ruby *Java *Perl
*.NET *WinDev *C# *PHP
*C# *.NET *Python
*Windows *Ruby
*C# *Windows
*Perl
*Mobile
Root *Available *Available *Not Available *Not Available
Access
Processor *32 Bit *32 Bit *Information not *Not Available
*64 Bit *64 Bit available
Virtualizati *Xen virtualization *Xen *Hyper-v *Not Available
on *Vmware virtualization hypervisor
virtualization
Security * Free Bootable *Free Advance *Backup storage * Free Advanced
Features mode firewall * Free Critical email security
* Free Critical data *Free data privacy * Free Advanced
privacy Custom/Secure * Free Data password security
*Backup storage permissions protection * Free Backup
* Free Data *Backup * Free Persistency storage
protection storage *Free Advance * Free Critical data
*Snapshot backup *Persistency firewall privacy
* Free Persistency *Snapshot * Free Data
*Free Advance backup protection
firewall * Free Failover
features
* Free Persistency
* Free Snapshot
backup

3. Databases *Microsoft SQL *IBM DB2 *SQL Azure *Not Available
server 2008 R2 *IBM Informix
Standard Edition dynamic server
*Microsoft SQL *Microsoft SQL
server 2008 R2 server standard
Web Edition *MySQL
*MySQL enterprise enterprise
*Oracle
database
Data center *US (Chicago) *US East *US (Chicago) US (San Francisco)
location *US (Dallas) (Northern *US (San Asia (Singapore)
*US (Virginia) Virginia) Antonio)
*EU (Netherlands) *US West *Asia (Hong
*Australia (Northern Kong)
(Sydney) California) *Asia (Singapore)
*UK (London) *EU (Ireland) *EU
*Asia (Hong Kong) *Asia Pacific (Netherlands)
(Singapore) *EU (Ireland)
*Asia Pacific *In total there are
(Tokyo) 24 nodes
*AWS
GovCloud (US)
*South America
(Sao Paulo)
Products *Cloud Hosting *Compute *Compute *Sales Cloud
*Managed Hosting *Content *SQL Azure *Data.com
*Hybrid Hosting Delivery *Storage *Service Cloud
*Email and Apps *Database *Business *Chatter
*Deployment Analytics *Radian6
and *Service Bus *Force.com
Management *CDN (Content *Heroku
*Messaging Delivery *Database.com

4. Service (SES) Network) *Siteforce
*Networking *Virtual Network *AppExchange
*Payments and *Identity *Remedyforce
Billing *HPC
*Storage *Marketplace
*Support
*Workforce
Service *Network and data *Amazon *Compute and *All services 99.9%
Level center route53 100% connectivity guaranteed per
Agreement infrastructure is guaranteed per 99.95% month
100% guaranteed month guaranteed per
per month *Amazon EC2 month
*Cloud files and 99.95% *Storage, SQL
Cloud load guaranteed per Azure, Service
balancers 99.9% year Bus, Access
guaranteed per *Amazon Control, Business
billing period route53 and Analytic, Caching,
Amazon and CDN 99.9%
CloudFront guaranteed per
99.9% month.
guaranteed per
month
SLA *Cloud load *Amazon EC2 *Compute *Not Available
compensati balancers, 10% for below connectivity,
on Migration nad 99.95% compute role
Cloud server hosts *Amazon S3 instance
5% for each and Amazon monitoring,
additional hour and CloudFront storage, CDN –
up to 100% 10% for equal 10% credit for
*Network and Data to or greater below 99.95% and
center than 99% but 25% for below
Infrastructure 5% less than 99.9% 99.9%

5. for 30 minutes and and 25% for
up to 100% less than 99%
Basic *Cloud servers – *Amazon EC2 *Compute – extra *Sales cloud –
Pricing 256MB RAM, – Small – small – shared contact
10GB storage - 1.7GB memory, CPU cores. management
$0.015/hr 1 virtual core, 1 768MB - $0.04/hr $2/user/month
*Cloud sites – EC2 compute *SQL Azure – *Service cloud –
50GB storage, unit, 160GB standard – pay as professional edition
500GB bandwidth, storage, 32 bit - you go $65/user/month
10,000 compute $0.085/hr * Storage - *Data.com – clean
cycles - (Linux) $0.14/GB/month. call for price
$149/month $0.12/hr $0.01/10,000 *Chatter – chatter
*Cloud files - (windows) transaction free
$0.15/GB *Amazon *CDN - *Force.com – One
storage/month, $0.015/hr $0.12/GB, app $15/user/month
$0.18/GB *Amazon S3 – $0.01/10,000
bandwidth/month standard – transactions
*Managed cloud 1TB/month *Caching – $45
servers - $0.14/GB, for 128MB cache
$199/month $0.01/1000 size, 400,000
*Rackspace email - requests transactions/hr
$2/mailbox/month *Amazon EBS - 1,400 data
*Rackspace server $0.1/ allocated transfers/hr, 10
backup - GB/month, concurrent
$4/user/month, $0.1/million I/O connections
requests
*Amazon RDS
– standard -
1.7GB memory,
64 bit - $0.11/hr
*Amazon VPC

6. – free
*Amazon
route53 – first
25 hosted zones
- $0.5/month,
first billion
queries
$0.5/month
Industrial *US Safe Harbor *SAS 70 Type *US Safe Harbor *TRUSTe certified
Regulatory *SAS 70 Type II II privacy
Complianc *ISO 27001 *HIPAA *VeriSign Secured
e *PCI Data Security *SOX *SysTrust
Standard *ISO 27001 *SAS 70 Type II
*PCI Data *US Safe Harbor
Security *ISO 27001
Standard
*FIPS 140-2
*FISMA
Moderate
*International
Traffic In Arms
Compliance
Free Trial *14 days free trial *Not available *3 months free *30 day free trial
rackspace email trial with 750 for all services
small compute
hours per month,
1GB of database
using web edition
SQL, and 20GB
storage covering
50,000
transactions

7. Support *Fanatical Support *24/7 *24/7 *Forums
*24X7X365 *Diagnostic *Forums *Knowledge Base
*Forum Tools *Online *Online Resources
*Live Chat *Forums Resources *Phone
*Online Resources *Online Guides *Phone
*Phone *Phone *Urgent Response
*Urgent Response *Urgent
Response
Root *Available *Available *Not available *Not available
Access
Website *rackspace.com *aws.amazon.c *windowsazure.co *salesforce.com
om m
Blog *http://www.racksp *http://forums.a *http://www.wind *http://blogs.salesfo
Communit ace. ws. ows rce.
y com/blogs/ Amazon.com azure.com/en- Com/company/
us/community/blo
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