All terms
Glossary
VPC
Also: Virtual Private Cloud
Your own virtual network in AWS, where subnets, routes and access rules are defined.
The VPC determines what may talk to what and what is reachable from outside. Public subnets have a route to the internet, private ones do not, and translation sits between them.
It is one of the decisions with a long half-life: changing address ranges once systems are running is painful to impossible.
How you notice it
- A new environment is being set up in AWS.
- A connection to the corporate network is foreseeable.
- Other accounts or networks already exist in the company.
Frequently asked
How large should the address range be?
Larger than you think, and agreed with the company. A /16 costs nothing and prevents the most expensive mistake there is: overlapping ranges at the first peering. That can only be fixed by moving.