AWS Networking Fundamentals | Introduction and Basics

This blog covers a brief introduction and explanation of AWS Networking. AWS provides various AWS services to create a network of interlinked resources, and we will discuss a few of them with the following topics covered.

AWS Networking

A Network is a way of communication between devices. AWS Networking allows creating a fast, reliable, and secure network. AWS offers various cloud services that are on-demand, available, and highly scalable. Various AWS services make an AWS network complete, like Amazon VPC, Amazon EC2, Amazon Route 53, Load Balancers, Amazon Gateway, and more. All the services individually create an Amazon Network. To understand AWS Networking better, it is important to get familiar with all the Amazon services that create a network.

Check also: Free AWS Training

Amazon VPC

Amazon VPC or Virtual Private Cloud is a service that allows us to create an isolated virtual network for our Amazon resources. A virtual network is a private network that is always hidden from the outside world, and you can perform certain operations that you don’t want to make public. Any user with their AWS account can host Amazon VPC. You can create, access, and manage Amazon VPC with the help of certain tools and services like the Amazon Web Service Management Console, Amazon CLI (Command Line Interface), Amazon SDK, and Query API.

Some Basic Concepts for Amazon VPC

• Subnet – A subpart of your network with a dedicated range of IP addresses.
• Route Table – It is used to direct traffic with a set of rules called routes.
• Gateway – It enables communication between your network and resources.

Also Read: Our blog post on AWS SNS.

Amazon EC2

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud or EC2 is one of the most used AWS services to create and launch virtual machine instances. It provides a secure and resizable compute capacity in the cloud. It helps create various virtual machines instances within the cloud that can be easily set up in a while. For Amazon Networking, Amazon EC2 is one of the key services.

Key Features of Amazon EC2 Instance

• Uses predefined and preconfigured Amazon Machine Images (AMI) for easy setup.
• It allows you to configure memory, storage, and networking capacity for the instance based on your need.
• AWS EC2 instance is secured with key pairs for storing login information.
• Uses a secure firewall to specify IP, range, ports, and protocols to access your instance.
• Uses Instance Store Volumes to preserve your temporary data if you stop, hibernate, or terminate the instance.

Check Out: Our blog post on AWS Secrets Manager.

Amazon Route 53

Amazon Route 53 is a scalable and highly available Domain Name System (DNS) service. It enables to route end users to internet applications reliably and cost-effectively. Route 53 connects user requests infrastructure inside or outside of AWS Infrastructure, including Amazon EC2 instances, Elastic Load Balancers, Amazon S3 buckets, and more.

Key Benefits of Amazon Route 53

• Highly Available and Reliable – In case of failover Amazon Route 53 Traffic Flow routs users to an alternate location if the primary location is unavailable.
• Flexible and Fast – A user can create and edit traffic policies. Also, depending on network conditions, it routes users to optimal locations.
• Simple and Secure – You can configure DNS settings using AWS Management Console or an easy-to-use API. Also, by integrating Amazon Route 53 with IAM (Identity Access Management), you can create and manage permissions for each user with unique credentials.
• Scalable and Cost-Effective – Route 53 can handle large query volumes by auto-scaling. Also, your charges for Route 53 depend on the resources and the number of queries.

Also Read: Our blog post on Cloud Service Models.

Amazon Load Balancing

Elastic Load Balancing is a load balancing service for AWS. It helps in automatically distributing incoming traffic from various cloud applications and scaling resources to meet the traffic demands. It works over various resources like Amazon EC2 instances, containers, IP addresses, and lambda functions.

Key Features of Amazon Load Balancing

• High Availability – It is a fully managed service and provides high availability by keeping your applications available across a region without the need for GSLB (Global Server Load Balancing).
• Security – It provides robust security features like integrated certificate management, SSL/TLS decryption, and user authentication.
• Robust Monitoring – It allows you to monitor the performance and health of your applications in real-time with the help of Amazon Cloud Watch metrics, logging, and tracing.

Types of Load Balancers

• Application Load Balancer
• Network Load Balancer
• Gateway Load Balancer
• Classic Load Balancer

Check Out: What is AWS WAF?

AWS Private Link

AWS Private Link provides private connectivity between various amazon services. The connectivity is done between Amazon VPC (Virtual Private Cloud), Amazon Web Services, and on-premises network without exposing traffic to the public internet.

Features of Private Link

• Secure Traffic – It reduces exposure to various threats like brute force and distributed DOS attacks as it doesn’t traverse the public internet.
• Simplicity – It allows to connect with services across Amazon VPC without the need for firewall rules, path definitions, or route tables.

Also Check: AWS Certified Solutions Architect Salary.

AWS Direct Connect

AWS Direct Connect helps in establishing a dedicated network from your premises to AWS. It enables a private and secure connection between AWS and the data center. It is compatible with AWS services and supports a high bandwidth for a more consistent network and better speed. The starting speed is around 50 Mbps and supports scaling up to 100 Gbps.

Key Components of Direct Connect

• Connections – Connections are created for the communication between AWS and on-premises.
• Virtual Interfaces – It enables access to AWS services. Public interface access public services like Amazon S3, whereas a private interface access private services like VPC (Virtual Private Cloud).

Check Out: Our blog post on AWS Well Architected Framework Pillars.

Amazon Gateway

Gateway is a service that acts as a gatekeeper for your network. All the request goes that is made from one end goes through a gateway to reach the other end. In simple words, it joins two networks for enabling communication between the devices present in them. For Amazon Networking, two common Amazon Gateways are used API Gateway and Transit Gateway.

• Transit Gateway – Simplifies network and peering relationships by connecting VPC and on-premises networks through a central hub.
• API Gateway – It handles all the tasks to accept and process all the API calls. It helps developers to create, publish, monitor, and secure API at any scale.

Check Out: AWS Solution Architect Interview Questions and Answers.

AWS Network Architecture

AWS Network architecture is a representation or structured way for connecting various AWS services in a cloud. It serves the connectivity needs by creating a web of interconnected devices. Using the various AWS components and services, a fast and secured network is created.

The above diagram shows a sample of AWS Networking Architecture with Amazon VPC, where multiple components and services are connected to create a network.

Check Out: Our blog post on AWS CloudHSM.

Frequently Asked Questions

1) What is AWS in Networking?
Answer: AWS stands for Amazon Web Services, and networking is the web of interconnected devices sharing resources via the internet or cables. So, AWS Networking is the infrastructure and services provided by AWS to create your own network.

2) Do you need to know Networking for AWS?
Answer: AWS is a cloud service that hosts your infrastructure and resources over the internet. So, basic knowledge of Networking is a must to use AWS as all the operations will involve your networking skills.

3) What are subnets AWS?
Answer: ‘Sub‘ is a part, and ‘Net‘ is a network. So, the subnet is a part of the network. These are logical subdivisions of IP addresses created by dividing a network.

4) What are the benefits of AWS Network?
Answer: AWS provides various benefits over networking like a vast range of network services like Amazon VPC, AWS EC2, AWS Private Link, AWS Direct Connect, AWS Gateway, etc., with improved security, availability, performance, and monitoring.

Conclusion

Amazon provides various AWS services for fast, reliable, and secure AWS Networking. It provides solutions for creating a cloud network with various AWS services like Amazon VPC, EC2 Instance, Route 53, Load Balancers, Gateway, and more. We only covered the basics of AWS Networking. If you want to get a deep insight into AWS, check our Amazon AWS Solution Architect Certification for Beginners course below.

Related/Reference

Next Task For You

Our AWS Solution Architect Associate training program will create a Custom VPC  in detail and 30 other Hands-On Labs. If you want to begin your journey towards becoming an AWS Certified Solution Architect Associate, check our FREE CLASS.