A practical AWS vs GCP vs OCI vs Azure terminology comparison that is useful for cloud engineers, architects, and interview preparation.
Cloud Terminology Comparison
| Category | AWS | GCP | OCI | Azure |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cloud Provider | Amazon Web Services | Google Cloud Platform | Oracle Cloud Infrastructure | Microsoft Azure |
| Account / Top Level | AWS Account | Google Cloud Organization | Tenancy | Azure Tenant |
| Grouping / Hierarchy | AWS Organizations | Organization → Folders → Projects | Tenancy → Compartments | Management Groups → Subscriptions → Resource Groups |
| Project / Subscription | AWS Account | Project | Compartment | Subscription |
| Resource Grouping | Resource Groups / Tags | Project / Folder | Compartment | Resource Group |
| Region | Region | Region | Region | Region |
| Availability Zone | Availability Zone | Zone | Availability Domain | Availability Zone |
| Data Center | Availability Zone contains multiple data centers | Zone consists of one or more data centers | Availability Domain consists of data centers | Availability Zone is a physically separate location within a region |
| Virtual Network | VPC | VPC | VCN | Virtual Network (VNet) |
| Subnet | Subnet | Subnet | Subnet | Subnet |
| Public IP | Elastic IP | Static External IP | Public IP | Public IP |
| Private IP | Private IP | Internal IP | Private IP | Private IP |
| Internet Gateway | Internet Gateway | Default Internet Gateway | Internet Gateway | Internet Gateway |
| NAT Gateway | NAT Gateway | Cloud NAT | NAT Gateway | NAT Gateway |
| Firewall | Security Groups / NACLs | VPC Firewall Rules | Security Lists / NSGs | Network Security Groups / Azure Firewall |
| Route Table | Route Table | Routes | Route Table | Route Table |
| Load Balancer | Elastic Load Balancing | Cloud Load Balancing | Load Balancer | Azure Load Balancer / Application Gateway |
| DNS | Route 53 | Cloud DNS | DNS | Azure DNS |
| CDN | CloudFront | Cloud CDN | OCI CDN | Azure Front Door / CDN |
| Virtual Machine | EC2 | Compute Engine | Compute | Azure Virtual Machines |
| VM Image | AMI | Machine Image | Custom Image | VM Image |
| Autoscaling | EC2 Auto Scaling | Managed Instance Groups | Instance Pools / Autoscaling | Virtual Machine Scale Sets |
| Serverless Compute | Lambda | Cloud Run / Cloud Functions | Functions | Azure Functions |
| Containers | ECS / EKS | GKE | OKE | AKS |
| Container Registry | ECR | Artifact Registry | OCIR | Azure Container Registry |
| Object Storage | S3 | Cloud Storage | Object Storage | Blob Storage |
| Block Storage | EBS | Persistent Disk | Block Volume | Managed Disks |
| File Storage | EFS | Filestore | File Storage | Azure Files |
| Archive Storage | S3 Glacier | Cloud Storage Archive | Archive Storage | Azure Archive Storage |
| Relational Database | RDS / Aurora | Cloud SQL / AlloyDB | Base Database Service | Azure SQL Database |
| MySQL | RDS for MySQL / Aurora | Cloud SQL for MySQL | MySQL HeatWave | Azure Database for MySQL |
| PostgreSQL | RDS for PostgreSQL / Aurora | Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL / AlloyDB | PostgreSQL | Azure Database for PostgreSQL |
| NoSQL Database | DynamoDB | Firestore / Bigtable | NoSQL Database | Cosmos DB |
| Data Warehouse | Redshift | BigQuery | Autonomous Data Warehouse | Synapse Analytics |
| Message Queue | SQS | Cloud Tasks / Pub/Sub | Queue | Service Bus |
| Publish/Subscribe | SNS | Pub/Sub | Notifications | Service Bus Topics / Event Grid |
| Event Service | EventBridge | Eventarc | Events | Event Grid |
| Streaming | Kinesis | Pub/Sub | Streaming | Event Hubs |
| Secrets Management | Secrets Manager | Secret Manager | Vault | Key Vault |
| Encryption Keys | KMS | Cloud KMS | Vault / Key Management | Key Vault |
| Identity Service | IAM | Cloud IAM | IAM | Microsoft Entra ID |
| Role-Based Access | IAM Roles / Policies | IAM Roles | IAM Policies | RBAC |
| Monitoring | CloudWatch | Cloud Monitoring | Monitoring | Azure Monitor |
| Logging | CloudWatch Logs | Cloud Logging | Logging | Azure Monitor Logs |
| Audit Logs | CloudTrail | Cloud Audit Logs | Audit | Azure Activity Log |
| Configuration Management | AWS Config | Cloud Asset Inventory / Config Controller | Cloud Guard / Resource Search | Azure Policy |
| Infrastructure as Code | CloudFormation / CDK | Deployment Manager / Terraform | Resource Manager / Terraform | ARM Templates / Bicep / Terraform |
| Managed Kubernetes | EKS | GKE | OKE | AKS |
| API Management | API Gateway | API Gateway | API Gateway | API Management |
| Machine Learning Platform | SageMaker | Vertex AI | OCI Data Science | Azure Machine Learning |
| Data Migration | AWS DMS | Database Migration Service | Database Migration | Azure Database Migration Service |
| Key-Value / NoSQL | DynamoDB | Firestore | NoSQL Database | Cosmos DB |
| Virtual Desktop | WorkSpaces | Google Cloud Virtual Desktops / partners | OCI Secure Desktops | Azure Virtual Desktop |
| Email Service | SES | — / partners | Email Delivery | Azure Communication Services |
| DevOps / CI/CD | CodePipeline / CodeBuild | Cloud Build / Cloud Deploy | DevOps Services | Azure DevOps |
| Container Serverless | Fargate | Cloud Run | Container Instances | Container Apps |
| Private Connectivity | Direct Connect | Cloud Interconnect | FastConnect | ExpressRoute |
| VPN | Site-to-Site VPN | Cloud VPN | VPN | Azure VPN Gateway |
The Most Important Equivalents
If you're moving between clouds, these are the mappings worth memorizing:
| AWS | GCP | OCI | Azure |
|---|---|---|---|
| EC2 | Compute Engine | Compute | Virtual Machines |
| VPC | VPC | VCN | VNet |
| Subnet | Subnet | Subnet | Subnet |
| S3 | Cloud Storage | Object Storage | Blob Storage |
| EBS | Persistent Disk | Block Volume | Managed Disk |
| EFS | Filestore | File Storage | Azure Files |
| RDS | Cloud SQL | Base Database Service | Azure SQL / Azure Database |
| DynamoDB | Firestore / Bigtable | NoSQL Database | Cosmos DB |
| Redshift | BigQuery | Autonomous Data Warehouse | Synapse |
| Lambda | Cloud Functions / Cloud Run | Functions | Azure Functions |
| EKS | GKE | OKE | AKS |
| ECR | Artifact Registry | OCIR | ACR |
| ELB | Cloud Load Balancing | Load Balancer | Azure Load Balancer |
| Route 53 | Cloud DNS | DNS | Azure DNS |
| CloudFront | Cloud CDN | OCI CDN | Azure Front Door |
| IAM | Cloud IAM | IAM | Entra ID + Azure RBAC |
| KMS | Cloud KMS | Vault | Key Vault |
| CloudWatch | Cloud Monitoring | Monitoring | Azure Monitor |
| CloudTrail | Cloud Audit Logs | Audit | Activity Log |
| SQS | Cloud Tasks / Pub/Sub | Queue | Service Bus |
| SNS | Pub/Sub | Notifications | Service Bus / Event Grid |
| Kinesis | Pub/Sub | Streaming | Event Hubs |
| API Gateway | API Gateway | API Gateway | API Management |
| Direct Connect | Cloud Interconnect | FastConnect | ExpressRoute |
| CloudFormation | Deployment Manager / Terraform | Resource Manager / Terraform | ARM / Bicep / Terraform |
Easy way to remember the four clouds
Compute
AWS EC2 → GCP Compute Engine → OCI Compute → Azure VM
Network
AWS VPC → GCP VPC → OCI VCN → Azure VNet
Object Storage
AWS S3 → GCP Cloud Storage → OCI Object Storage → Azure Blob
Kubernetes
AWS EKS → GCP GKE → OCI OKE → Azure AKS
Serverless
AWS Lambda → GCP Cloud Run/Functions → OCI Functions → Azure Functions
Identity
AWS IAM → GCP IAM → OCI IAM → Microsoft Entra ID/Azure RBAC
If you're preparing for multi-cloud architecture or interviews, the most useful next step is a service-by-service AWS → GCP → OCI → Azure cheat sheet with ~100 services, including networking, databases, security, DevOps, Kubernetes, serverless, and monitoring.
