Introduction
Welcome to the continuation of the third installment of Paul’s Tutorial Series! As mentioned in my previous articles, this tutorial is all about exploring cloud providers.
More specifically, I wanted to look at first user experience across them, so I decided to sign-up to (6) cloud providers, and capture my experience spinning up a free-tier VM right after sign up.
The (6) cloud providers I tested are, in alphabetical order:
- Alibaba Cloud
- Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- Microsoft Azure (Azure)
- Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
- IBM Cloud
- Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI)
This means that this third chapter of my tutorial series will have 6 parts, one for each cloud provider.
While I walk you through every part of this chapter, I will measure the following:
- Configuration of the default VM offered in free tier
- Approximate number of clicks needed from post-signup page to having a VM up and running
- Number of screens needed in a replay to publish this tutorial
- Spin-up time
- Usability score (from my perspective, in a scale of 1 to 5)
Today’s Tutorial: Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
Let’s dive into OCI, by clicking on the image below:
I was honestly impressed by Oracle Cloud:
1. No weird flow with billing information needed in the middle of the provisioning
2. The lowest amount of clicks from startup to VM
3. Super clear panel on VM events
Only caveat is that the launching time was 46s, but I may be biased because this information isn’t easily available in any other cloud.
Here are the usability results:
| Config of default “free” tier VM | 1 vCPU / 1 GB RAM |
| Approximate number of clicks from signup to VM | 4-5 |
| Number of draft replay screens | 10 |
| Spin-up time | < 50s |
| Paul’s usability score (1-5) | 4.5 |
Conclusion
Drum roll please, here are the results of this cloud wars article series!
Winner: A tie between GCP and OCI!
Obviously, this is such a small aspect of what cloud providers can offer that the score could be totally different depending on what you are looking for (serverless, specific services, partner ecosystem, etc.)
This was a fun exercise nonetheless. Looking forward to next week with a brand new tutorial!
Do you want to learn more about OCI? Check out this link.
Do you want to learn how to build replays like this? Book time with me.
Do you have suggestions? Comments? Tech you want me to have a look out? Reach out to me on LinkedIn / Twitter
About Paul’s Tutorial Series
What is it? Every week, I chose a piece of tech that picked my interest, and create an easy to consume tutorial showcasing this tech.
Why do I do it? I’m a huge nerd passionate about tech.
Who is this for? Anyone really. The goal is tech evangelization, without ulterior motive, just love.
What’s the topic for this week? How to create a VM in OCI and how does it compare to other cloud providers.
