Connecting the dots.. from Azure to AWS - Part 2
Tags: azure, aws, artifacts, mapping
Published: 2021-12-02 12:48:32

In continuation of my previous article : 
[Connecting the dots.. from Azure to AWS - Part 1](https://dev.to/surjyob/connecting-the-dots-from-azure-to-aws-part-1-2l52) , let me discuss further for a couple of more services in AWS and Azure.

## 1. Querying the Blob Storage
For Storage, S3 equivalent service would be Azure Data Lake Storage which is built on top of Azure Blob Storage.

The Azure equivalent of Athena is Data Lake Analytics. Like Athena, it is also "serverless" and pay-per-use. It uses U-SQL, which is a combination of SQL and C# that provides a lot of power and flexibility that SQL alone cannot. An advantage of Data Lake Analytics is that it is not limited to querying Azure Data Lake Store and Blob Storage, it can also talk to SQL Database and SQL Data Warehouse.

## 2.Querying the Logs in AWS and Azure
In AWS CloudWatch Log Insights is the service that is used to query the Logs to get relevant details, in case of Azure Log,  Kusto Query Language is the equivalent.

## 3. Monitoring Services
Azure’s native monitoring service, Azure Monitor, and AWS’ equivalent, Amazon CloudWatch, are both transforming the way cloud teams are detecting and remediating issues with applications and infrastructure resources. Both cloud services consolidate massive amounts of data from cloud and on-premises sources, provide visualization and analysis, allow users to respond to issues quickly, and support a strong ecosystem 
of third-party solutions. 

**Azure Monitor Metrics**: Azure Monitor Metrics is a feature of Azure Monitor that collects numeric data from monitored resources into a time series database. Metrics are numerical values that are collected at regular intervals and describe some aspect of a system at a specific point in time. Metrics are lightweight and capable of supporting near real-time scenarios, making them useful for alerting and fast detection of issues.

**Azure Monitor Logs**: Azure Monitor Logs is a feature of Azure Monitor that collects and organizes log and performance data from monitored resources. Log data collected from different sources can be consolidated into a single workspace so they can be analyzed together. 

Data stored in Azure Monitor Metrics is more lightweight than data stored in Azure Monitor Logs and is capable of supporting near real-time scenarios—making Metrics useful for alerting and quickly detecting issues. 

Secondly, Azure Monitor Metrics can only be stored as numerical data in a particular structure, while Log data may store a variety of different data types, each with their own structure. Because of this, data collected by Azure Monitor Logs is analyzed with queries. 

**Amazon CloudWatch Alarms** (known as Alerts in Azure Monitor) monitor your metric values against thresholds predetermined by the user, or via machine learning models built to detect anomalous behavior. If an alarm is triggered, CloudWatch can distribute notifications and take corrective action, such as detecting and shutting down an unused or underutilized instance.

**CloudWatch Events** enables users to automate responses to operational changes. CloudWatch Events provide a near real-time stream of system events that describe changes in your AWS resources. Users can write custom rules to indicate which event is of interest to their application and what automated actions to take when a rule matches an event.

## 4. AWS Config & Azure Policy
AWS Config can be thought to be equivalent to Azure Policy.
**Azure Policy** is a service in Azure that you use to create, assign and, manage policy definitions. Policy definitions enforce different rules and effects over your resources, so those resources stay compliant with your corporate standards and service level agreements. Azure Policy runs an evaluation of your resources, scanning for those not compliant with the policy definitions you have.
**AWS Config** is a service that enables you to assess, audit, and evaluate the configurations of your AWS resources. Config continuously monitors and records your AWS resource configurations and allows you to automate the evaluation of recorded configurations against desired configurations.

AWS Service Control Policies (SCP) can be thought to be equivalent to Azure Policies + RBAC.

## 5. AWS Elastic IP and Azure Static IP

An Elastic IP address in AWS is a static, public IPv4 address designed for dynamic cloud computing. You can associate an Elastic IP address with any instance or network interface in any VPC in your account. Public IP addresses are dynamic - i.e. if you stop/start your instance you get reassigned a new public IP. Elastic IPs get allocated to your account, and stay the same - it's up to you to attach them to an instance or not. You could say they are static public IP addresses.
Azure supports Static Public IPs  that is equivalent to Elastic IP in AWS. Static Public IPs can be mapped to a VM's NIC (elastic IP equivalent) or to a load balancer's Front end IP. 

References
[MS Docs](https://docs.microsoft.com)
[AWS Docs](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/)
[StackOverFlow](https://stackoverflow.com/)