Build a Hybrid Cloud Lab: AWS VPC + Cisco Catalyst 8000V + BGP for Under $2/Day

A Cisco Catalyst 8000V on a $1/day AWS t3.medium instance gives you a production-grade hybrid cloud lab — IPsec VPN with BGP connecting your on-prem lab to AWS. No slides, no diagrams-only training. Real infrastructure, real routing. This walkthrough covers the full build: VPC, subnets, C8000V deployment, IKEv2 IPsec tunnel, eBGP route exchange, and Transit Gateway multi-VPC extension. What You're Building On-Prem Lab (CML/EVE-NG) AWS Cloud ┌─────────────────────┐ ┌──────────────────────────────┐ │ CSR1000v / IOSv │ │ VPC: 10.100.0.0/16 │ │ Loopback0: 1.1.1.1 │ │ │ │ ASN 65001 │ │ ┌────────────────────────┐ │ │ │◄──►│ │ Catalyst 8000V (cEdge) │ │ │ Lab Prefix: │IPsec│ │ Public: 10.100.1.0/24 │ │ │ 192.168.0.0/16 │+BGP │ │ Private: 10.100.2.0/24 │ │ └─────────────────────┘ │ │ ASN 65002 │ │ │ └────────────────────────┘ │ │ │ │ │ Transit Gateway │ │ ┌─────┴─────┐ │ │ VPC-A VPC-B │ │ 10.200.0.0 10.201.0.0 │ └──────────────────────────────┘ eBGP exchanges routes dynamically between your ph