Amazon Deep Learning AMIs vs. Lumen Public Cloud (discontinued)

Amazon AMIs has been very useful for the quick setup and implementation of deep learning for data analysis which is something I have used the service for in my own research. We commonly use the service to enable students to run intensive deep learning algorithms for their assessments. This service works well in this scenario as it allows students to quickly set up a suitable environment and get started with little hassle. If you are looking to run simple, surface level deep learning algorithms (kind of contradictory statement I know) then AMI is more complicated than most will need. When it comes to teaching the basics of Machine Learning, this kind of system is unnecessary and there are other alternatives which can be used. That being said this service is a must if you are looking to run complex deep learning via the cloud.

Incentivized

I believe for small to mid business application hosting Centurylink provides an adequate service. When moving to larger scale business enviornments I believe the limitations, slowness is going to become a problem

Incentivized

• Setting up environment
• Support for different types of machines
• Perfect for Machine Learning / Deep Learning use cases
• Nvidia / Cuda / Conda support easily

Incentivized

• Offloading the requirements for hosting apps in house - cost savings
• Access ability - users could access documents and programs from anywhere
• Collaborative work ability - multiple users could work within the same enviornment

Incentivized

• Some aspects of the User Interface are quite confusing and activating packages can be a bit convoluted
• It can be a bit confusing to switch between frameworks for novice users

Incentivized

• Perhaps ease of use - it's not convoluted but a little more streamlined of an interface would be great
• Make your presence more known - in a world of heavily advertised cloud options CenturyLink is not at the top of the pile and I think it may be due to a lack of awareness in the business community. Advertise!
• Streamline functionality - interface can be a little slow at times.

Incentivized

Both of these services provide similar functionality and from my experience both are top class services which cover most of your needs. I think ultimately it comes down to what you need each service for. For example Amazon DL AMIs allows for clustering by default meaning I am able to run several clustering algorithms without a problem whereas IBM Watson Studio doesn't provide this functionality. They both provide a wide range of default packages such as Amazon providing caffe-2 and IBM providing sci-kitlearn. My main point is that both are very good services which have very similar functionality, you just need to think about the costs, suitability of features and integration with other services you are using.

Incentivized

I did not select the application hosting environment - I was a user. That being said I do not have much of a voice in the difference between hosted services that I have experienced.

Incentivized

• Saves a lot of Infra Costs
• Saves a lot of time in handling environment issues
• Easy to start a new instance

Incentivized