What Are VPCs and Subnets in Cloud Computing & How Do They Work?
Reading Time: 4 minutesIf you use cloud computing, you might encounter these terms. But what do they mean?
Cloud computing has brought significant changes to how we imagine computing resources.
Cloud providers have removed the need to worry about expensive hardware or the maintenance of complex infrastructures and have made it possible to access and set up low- to high-end computing resources on demand at affordable costs.
In the world of cloud computing, you may encounter the terms VPCs and subnets. So, what do they mean, and how do they work?
What Is a VPC?
VPC is the acronym for virtual private cloud. A VPC, as the term implies, is a virtual private environment you can create in the cloud.
A VPC is usually offered as a service in public clouds by cloud providers, but with a VPC, you get a secure and isolated network within the provider’s infrastructure in which you can create and manage resources.
A VPC can be likened to on-premise infrastructure, where you set up and configure all your computing resources in one place because you own them all. The only difference here is that you don’t own or maintain the hardware, and you can easily scale your infrastructure up or down based on your requirements.
To find the VPC service on top cloud platforms, search for the VPC service on AWS, Google Cloud, and IBM Cloud; on Azure, it’s called virtual network; and on Oracle, it’s called virtual cloud network.
How Does a VPC Work?
Having learned that a VPC allows you to create a network of resources in a logically isolated section of the cloud, it is important to understand the important points about how VPCs work.
When creating a VPC, you get to define a range of IP addresses for it. This IP address range divides the VPC into subnets, which can be further divided into smaller subnets as needed.
Each subnet is associated with a specific availability zone, which is a distinct physical location within a cloud provider’s infrastructure. You also configure security groups (firewall), access control lists, and route tables to control network access and traffic flow within the network.
A VPC usually spans all available zones in the region it is created. For example, the image below shows an Amazon VPC created in a region with only two availability zones.
It is also noteworthy that, with the use of virtual private networks (VPNs), it is possible to create multiple isolated environments within a single VPC. This is useful for organizing resources and providing different levels of network access to different users.
The idea of VPNs and other networking concepts becomes clearer when you learn more about how networking works.
What Is a Subnet?
‘Subnet’ is short for ‘subnetwork.’ A subnet is a smaller network found within a larger network. When you create a VPC on a cloud platform, you assign a range of unique IP addresses to it. Each distinct IP address serves to identify a subnet of the VPC.
Resources within the same subnet can exchange data with one another without the need for routing through a larger network. For example, a Linux server deployed in a subnet would have direct access to a Postgres database deployed within the same subnet.
Types of Subnets in the Cloud
There are mainly two types of subnets in cloud computing:
- Public subnets
- Private subnets
A public subnet is directly accessible from the internet. Resources deployed in public subnets are usually assigned public addresses, which can be used to communicate directly with the internet.
Public subnets are used to deploy resources that need to be publicly accessible on the internet, such as load balancers and public APIs.
A private subnet is a subnet that is not directly accessible from the internet (doesn’t have a public IP address). Private subnets can only be accessed from within the VPC (only resources within the VPC can communicate with them).
Resources deployed in private subnets are usually only accessible within the network through a NAT (Network Address Translation) gateway. Private subnets are used to deploy resources that don’t need public access, such as application servers and databases, which improves network security by limiting the exposure of resources to the internet.
How Do Subnets Work?
Subnets allow you to segment your cloud resources into isolated networks with separate IP address ranges. This segmentation provides a way to control network traffic flow between resources, improve network performance, and enhance security.
Each subnet in the cloud has its own set of network access control rules, which can be used to restrict inbound (incoming) and outbound (outgoing) traffic to specific IP addresses or ranges. This provides an additional layer of security to your cloud resources, helping to prevent unauthorized access.
The following image shows a complete infrastructure within the VPC visualized above. Note the four subnets, two private and two public, the route tables to regulate traffic within the VPC, the NAT gateway, the internet gateway, and the other resources such as the load balancer and EC2 instances.
Understanding VPCs and Subnets in the Cloud
VPCs and subnets are essential components of cloud computing infrastructure. With a VPC, you can create an isolated network within a cloud provider’s infrastructure, and with subnets, you can divide your IP address range into smaller and more manageable segments.
It is also recommended to always have all your application’s resources, such as virtual machines (e.g., EC2 instances) and databases (e.g., Amazon RDS instances), deployed within a VPC rather than randomly deploying them across different defaults as provided by the cloud provider.
Reference: https://www.makeuseof.com/what-are-vpcs-subnets-cloud-computing-how-do-they-work/
Ref: makeuseof
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