AWS, or Amazon Web Services, is the leading cloud-based networking service worldwide. Like how a network allows two devices to communicate, AWS Networking provides for building a fast, secure and stable network.
AWS offers various on-demand, available and highly-scalable cloud-based services that complete an entire AWS network. For example, Amazon VPC, Amazon EC2, Load Balancers and more services to create a networking AWS individually.
If you are an engineer or an architect presently focusing on AWS networking services, this article will help you understand the networking AWS services properly.
Benefits of Networking in AWS
A Networking AWS offers plenty of features because of its data encryption and private connection in the AWS global network.
Components in Networking AWS
Applying advanced networking features to your cloud solutions makes them much more robust, so let’s figure out what components are used in such processes while working with AWS networks.
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Virtual Private Cloud
The overarching networking component in the AWS framework is known as Virtual Private Cloud(VPC). And, within a VPC, you can build up IP address ranges and subnets, configure network gateways and security settings, and populate route tables.
VPC, the highest networking component in AWS, helps organize multiple resources in a logically structured network and keeps them isolated and independent. In addition, VPC also acts as an entry point to the application from outside.
Services like Direct Connect, Transit Gateway, and VPNs communicate beyond the AWS ecosystem, with VPC protecting the data from exposure to the external connection.
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Subnets
Subnet is a part of VPC and establishes a range of IP addresses for utilization. You can use multiple subnets in a single VPC, and provisioned resources can be placed easily in these subnets, making it a logical system entirely.
Subnets are used in two use cases. First, having subnets in different availability zones will help back up the applications in case of an outage. Secondly, subnets can be private and public, depending on the user’s requirements.
Public subnets can access the internet, making resources visible to the public, whereas Private ones will not have access to keeping the files confidential.
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Security Group
As the last component of networking AWS, a security group is similar to Network ACL, an additional security layer on subnets, and also acts as a virtual firewall with a few tweaks.
Security groups operate on the instance level rather than the subnet levels, meaning the two EC2 instances in the same subnet can have different security groups assigned to them. All external traffic is not allowed on EC2 instances by default, making it safer.
Network Security in AWS
AWS enables you to enforce truly-grained security policy at every network control point(host, network, and application level) across your enterprise.
AWS Network and Application Protection services then provide similar, flexible solutions that investigate and filter out the traffic to prevent unauthorized access to your network.
Amazon VPC security groups protect your AWS workloads at the host-level resources. At the network level, AWS Network Firewall allows you to control and manage the traffic to, from, and in between the VPCs.
Lastly, for protecting web applications, you can use services like AWS Web Application Firewall to filter out any part of the web request that needs security.
Network Performance in AWS
Amazon EC2 is designed to provide scalable, controllable, flexible and secure cloud-based resources. However, the network bandwidth available to EC2 depends on various factors:
Networking services in AWS
Many companies use AWS cloud services to build applications to offer their business services to customers. These organizations integrate their data, systems and customers within the AWS cloud, and networking AWS services allows them to work in a safe space.
According to AWS, networking services are categorized into three main areas depending on usage. These categories are-
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Network Architecture
The networking AWS services connect internal cloud services and expose them to external clients with the help of application delivery services. Network Architecture divides into four different services.
Amazon VPC- VPC helps provision an isolated section of the AWS cloud.
Elastic Load Balancing- It helps accomplish application fault tolerance by offering scalability, high performance and security.
AWS Global Accelerator- With the help of the AWS global network, the accelerator improves the availability and performance of international applications.
AWS Transit Gateway- Transit Gateway scales the connections across VPCs, AWS accounts and AWS networks.
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Network Connectivity
These services connect the AWS cloud to the client’s on-premise devices and VPCs, present within the cloud. Network Connectivity includes four unique services.
Amazon Route 53- It’s a reliable and cost-effective way of routing end-users to other internet applications.
AWS PrivateLink- PrivateLink provides access to services strictly hosted on AWS with assurance and safety by managing the network traffic within the AWS network only.
AWS Direct Connect- It allows clients to launch a reliable network connection from the AWS premises smoothly.
AWS VPN(Virtual Private Network)- VPNs allow users to access on-premise and cloud networks from anywhere around the world.
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Application Delivery
Application delivery services are the interface that faces the customer of cloud applications and services built by cloud users using AWS services. These further services branch into four more services.
Amazon CloudFront- CloudFront delivers a quick, highly secure, programmable content delivery network(CDN).
AWS App Mesh- App Mesh controls and manages microservices with safety for clients.
AWS Cloud Map- Cloud Map is a service discovery introduced to work with cloud resources.
Amazon API Gateway- With API Gateway, you can create, maintain, and secure API at any scalable level.
Optimising Networking Performance
Network Optimization is a process of improving your network's performance, reliability and resilience. It is all about identifying network problems/areas of improvement, improving network performance with substantial changes and comparing the versions before and after the modifications.
Some of the most popular Network Optimization Techniques are:
If these techniques don’t do much, you can always use these two popular network solutions for your system.
Managing Network Costs in AWS
Networking AWS services cost is associated with transferring data in and out of the AWS network. AWS charges you for the data transfer between the internet and AWS and between AWS services like Amazon S3 and Amazon EC2.
Network Costs vary based on geographical region, source, and target locations. Other factors determine the cost of AWS services, resources and the volume of data to be transferred.
However, you can access AWS Free Usage Tier for a shorter period and explore different offers while signing up. The free trial allows you to transfer 15GB of monthly data aggregated across all AWS services and regions.
You can use three additional chargeable services: AWS Global Accelerator, Amazon S3 Transfer Acceleration, and AWS Site-to-Site VPN with Acceleration to accelerate your data transfer between AWS regions and edge locations.
To optimize Networking, and AWS costs, understand your current data transfer speed and accordingly architect your AWS environment to optimize data transfers.
Conclusion
Many businesses have started moving their workloads to cloud technology; soon enough, everyone will be on the platform.
AWS is the cloud leader and uniquely positioned with a great customer base and the potential to fulfill the growing needs of small and more significant businesses.
It also supports the latest innovations required to grow them. So, if you still haven’t used the networking AWS services, it is time to get on with the world.
