The cornerstone of infrastructure as a service (IaaS) is the virtual machines that customers can use to virtualize servers. How do you choose between two experienced giants – Google and Amazon – when the time comes for your organization to start using cloud-based virtual machines? The answer is, “It depends”. There is no wrong choice to be made, but that is not to say they are identical. This article discusses the similarities and differences between them to help you decide which provider to use.