Introducing Today's Project!
What is Amazon VPC?
VPCs are private network spaces in AWS that let you organize and secure your cloud resources. They're useful because they give control over traffic flow, isolate your services from the public internet by default, and enable structured communication.
How I used Amazon VPC in this project
I used VPC to create a private, customizable, organized, and isolated network for my cloud resources. I built a new VPC from scratch, added a public subnet, and attached an internet gateway. This setup let my EC2 instances stay secured and connected.
One thing I didn't expect in this project was...
One thing I didn't expect in this project was how important deleting resources at the end would be. I thought building the VPC was the main goal, but I realized AWS charges for unused resources so cleanup is key to avoid unnecessary costs.
This project took me...
This AWS networking project took me about 60 minutes to complete, as outlined in the page summary. It was a great hands-on way to explore Amazon VPC, build a custom cloud network, and learn how to manage resources securely and efficiently.
Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs)
VPCs are virtual private networks within the AWS cloud that give you private, customizable control over how your cloud resources connect and interact. Without VPCs, all your resources would float in one massive open space online, with no privacy.
AWS sets up a default VPC! This is why I could launch some resources like EC2 instances and connect services together from Day 1 of using AWS. If it didn't exist, I would've had to learn how to create a VPC before I can use services that require it.
To set up my VPC, I had to define an IPv4 CIDR block, which is a range of IP addresses that my resources use to identify and communicate with each other. Itʼs like giving my city its own set of street addresses' range. I used '10.0.0.0/16'.
Subnets
Subnets are smaller zones within a VPC that organize resources and manage traffic. There are already subnets existing in my account, one for every Availability Zone, auto-created with the default VPC to support secure and structured cloud setups.
Once I created my subnet, I enabled auto-assign public IPv4 addresses. This setting makes sure each EC2 instance gets a public IP by default so that it's instantly accessible from the internet without manual setup. Great for public-facing services!
The difference between public and private subnets is access to the internet. A subnet is public, if it has been linked to a route table that sends traffic to an internet gateway without that, itʼs private by default and isolated from the internet.
Internet gateways
Internet gateways are tools that connect your VPC to the public internet. They allow resources, like EC2 instances in a public subnet, to share data with the outside world acting as the bridge between your isolated cloud environment and the internet.
Attaching an internet gateway to a VPC means your cloud resources, like EC2 instances in public subnets, can send and receive traffic from the internet. If I missed this step, my VPC would stay fully isolated, and none of my instances could connect.
🤝Next in the series builds on this, which is "VPC Traffic Flow and Security"
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