Azure Named Fastest Cloud Service

According to tests by Compuware’s CloudSleuth service Azure was named the fastest cloud service.

“In a comparative measure of cloud service providers, Microsoft’s Windows Azure has come out ahead. Azure offered the fastest response times to end users for a standard e-commerce application. But the amount of time that separated the top five public cloud vendors was minuscule.

These are first results I know of that try to show the ability of various providers to deliver a workload result. The same application was placed in each vendor’s cloud, then banged on by thousands of automated users over the course of 11 months.” The complete ranking board:

1. Windows Azure
2. GoGrid
3. Amazon EC2
4. Rackspace

The test involved the ability to deliver a Web page filled with catalog-type information consisting of many small images and text details, followed by a second page consisting of a large image and labels. The top five were all within 0.8 second of each other.

The test application is designed to require a multi-step transaction that’s being requested by users from a variety of locations around the world. CloudSleuth launches queries to the application from an agent placed on 150,000 user computers.

The response times were:

1. Windows Azure (data center outside Chicago) – 10.142 seconds
2. GoGrid – 10.468 seconds
3. Amazon EC2 Northen Virginia – 10.942 seconds
4. Rackspace  – 10.999 seconds
5. Amazon EC2 West (Washington State) – 11.838 seconds
6. OpSource, Calif. – 12.440 seconds
7. GoGrid West – 12.604 seconds
8. Terremark – 12.971 seconds
9. CloudSigma – 18.079 seconds
10. Amazon EC2 Europe/Ireland – 18.161 seconds
11. Windows Azure for Southeast Asia - 27.534 seconds
12. Amazon EC2 Asia/Pacific Singapore - 30.965 seconds

The response times include all the latencies of the last mile of service as the message moves off the Internet backbone and onto a local network segment. The response times reflect what end users are likely to see "at the edge of the network”.

The results listed:

• are averages for the month of December, when traffic increased at many providers. Results for October and November were slightly lower, between 9 and 10 seconds.
• are an average for each vendor, a composite response time compiled from 90,000 browser calls a month to the target application placed in each service provider’s cloud.

The original article is available on the informationweek.com’s page here.

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