AWS Networking

AWS Virtual Private Cloud VPC

A networking service that you can use to establish boundaries around your AWS resources is Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC).

Resources can be public facing so they have access to the internet, or private with no internet access, usually for backend services like databases or application servers. The public and private grouping of resources are known as subnets and they are ranges of IP addresses in your VPC.

Virtual private gateway

AWS Direct connect

AWS Direct Connect is a service that enables you to establish a dedicated private connection between your data center and a VPC.

Suppose that there is an apartment building with a hallway directly linking the building to the coffee shop. Only the residents of the apartment building can travel through this hallway.

Subnets and network access control lists

A network access control list (ACL) is a virtual firewall that controls inbound and outbound traffic at the subnet level.

Global networking

Domain Name System (DNS)

Suppose that AnyCompany has a website hosted in the AWS Cloud. Customers enter the web address into their browser, and they are able to access the website. This happens because of Domain Name System (DNS) resolution. DNS resolution involves a customer DNS resolver communicating with a company DNS server.

You can think of DNS as being the phone book of the internet. DNS resolution is the process of translating a domain name to an IP address.

For example, suppose that you want to visit AnyCompany’s website.

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1. When you enter the domain name into your browser, this request is sent to a customer DNS resolver.

2. The customer DNS resolver asks the company DNS server for the IP address that corresponds to AnyCompany’s website.

3. The company DNS server responds by providing the IP address for AnyCompany’s website, 192.0.2.0.

Amazon Route 53

Amazon Route 53 is a DNS web service. It gives developers and businesses a reliable way to route end users to internet applications hosted in AWS.

Amazon Route 53 connects user requests to infrastructure running in AWS (such as Amazon EC2 instances and load balancers). It can route users to infrastructure outside of AWS.

Another feature of Route 53 is the ability to manage the DNS records for domain names. You can register new domain names directly in Route 53. You can also transfer DNS records for existing domain names managed by other domain registrars. This enables you to manage all of your domain names within a single location.