Resource Groups in Azure/AWS

Resource Groups in Azure/AWS

In one of my previous blog post, I covered Resource Groups in Azure. In this post, I will briefly explain the Resource groups in AWS and then do a comparison.

Resource Group in AWS

A Resource group in AWS is nothing but a container for tags that have the same value. You can provision resources and add tags. A tag is nothing but a name value pair. Once you have provisioned some resources, you can go back the AWS console and click to create a resource group by specifying atleast 1 tag. Once a resource group has been created, AWS brings in all provisioned resources that have the same tag defined. 

Resource Group comparison

After provisioning a resource you can add/remove resources to/from a resource group. In Azure, this is not possible as when you are provisioning a resource you have to specify an existing Resource group or create a new Resource group. Azure will not let you provision the resource. In Azure, you can move a resource from 1 group to another and you can use the UI/powershell/REST to do the operation.

Azure's Resource group is a true container where you can set permissions at the resource group level, which is not possible in Resource group of AWS. You also can see the cost of all resources within the same Resource group together. A useful feature!

The other thing I like about Azure's Resource group is that when you delete the Resource group, all resources within the Resource group are deleted, which is not possible in Resource group of AWS.

Finally, I like the way Azure provisions resources using powershell/JSON/Resource group, which is not possible using Resource group of AWS (Link),

In AWS, you can have consolidated billing with up to maximum of 20 accounts linked. This functionality is probably the closest to  Azure's Resource groups.

In summary, the feature "Resource group" in Azure seems to be much better than AWS!!