Amazon Deep Learning AMIs vs. UpCloud

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

If you're looking for a cost-effective solution then this is a good choice, be sure to keep on top of your balance! The 100% uptime is also a nice addition, although not unique in a cloud hosting service.

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

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• Pricing
• Ease of use - super easy to manage existing servers and deploy new ones
• Great customer service

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• 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

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• The billing reports are quite hard to read, could be simplified
• A control panel function would be useful
• The re-billing process could be better, not so cut throat if you miss a payment!

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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.

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We trialed UpCloud to see if it would be better than DigitalOcean but for our needs, it was not. On DigitalOcean once a droplet is created, almost no thought needs to go into maintenance, outages, or other reliability-based issues.

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

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• The low cost means you don't really need to worry about pricing
• To us as a business it was not as useful as DigitalOcean

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