Networking Foundations for Cloud Engineers

VPC, Subnets, Internet Gateway, Route Tables, NAT 1. Why Do We Need a Virtual Network? In traditional on-premises data centers, companies build: Physical routers Switches Firewalls Cables Network segmentation In cloud, we don’t manage cables. But we still need: IP ranges Network isolation Controlled internet access Private communication between servers This is why cloud providers give us a virtual network . In AWS, this is called: Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) In Azure, this is called: Virtual Network (VNet) They solve the same problem. 2. What Is a VPC? (AWS Concept) A VPC (Virtual Private Cloud) is a logically isolated virtual network inside AWS. Think of it as: “Your own private data center inside AWS.” When you create a VPC, you define: An IP address range (CIDR block) Subnets Routing rules Internet connectivity Security rules Example: You create a VPC with: 10.0.0.0/16 That means your network can contain: 65,536 private IP addresses. No other AWS customer can use your internal IP sp