AWS Network Diagram

Site-to-site VPN AWS diagram

by Valts Ausmanis · June 27, 2023

In the complex world of AWS infrastructure, an effective network diagram is a crucial tool for understanding and optimizing your network architecture. A well-crafted AWS network diagram provides a comprehensive visual representation of the relationships, components, and connectivity within your AWS network environment. In this article, we will explore the key elements that define a good AWS network diagram and delve into the significance of visualizing your network infrastructure

Key Elements of an AWS Network Diagram

An AWS network diagram serves as a comprehensive visual representation of your AWS infrastructure, highlighting essential components that form the foundation of your network architecture. Within this diagram, key elements such as VPCs (Virtual Private Clouds), subnets, availability zones, and internet gateways play crucial roles in shaping your network connectivity and resource allocation.

A well-designed AWS network diagram provides insights into the flow of traffic to and from the public internet, offering a holistic view of the network architecture. By illustrating the connections between VPCs, internet gateways, VPC gateway/interface endpoints, etc., the diagram effectively showcases the relationships and configurations within the network.

When constructing an AWS network diagram, utilizing an infrastructure diagram generator or an AWS VPC diagram generator, such as Cloudviz.io, can streamline the process. These diagram generators enable automated diagram creation, saving time and effort while ensuring accuracy and consistency.

By utilizing an AWS diagram generator, you can visualize your AWS network architecture in a clear and structured manner, facilitating better understanding, communication, and troubleshooting. Gain a comprehensive overview of your AWS infrastructure with an AWS network diagram, empowering you to optimize your network design, enhance security, and efficiently manage your resources.

Key AWS network diagram elements for building AWS VPCs:

  • VPC (Virtual Private Cloud): The fundamental building block of your network infrastructure in AWS, allowing you to create a logically isolated section within the cloud
  • Subnets: Subdivisions of a VPC that enable you to allocate and manage IP addresses for different segments of your network
  • Availability Zones: Physically separate data center locations within a region, providing fault tolerance and high availability for your resources. Deploying subnets across multiple availability zones ensures resiliency
  • Internet Gateway: A horizontally scalable gateway that allows communication between your VPC and the internet, facilitating inbound and outbound traffic
  • Route Tables: Determine the traffic flow between subnets, availability zones, and the internet. They define the routes for network traffic within the VPC
  • Security Groups: Acts as a virtual firewall for your instances, controlling inbound and outbound traffic at the instance level
  • Network Access Control Lists (NACLs): Operate at the subnet level and provide an additional layer of network security by controlling inbound and outbound traffic at the subnet level
  • NAT Gateway: Enables instances in private subnets to access the internet while keeping them secure by not exposing their direct IP addresses
  • VPN (Virtual Private Network) Connections: Establish secure connections between your on-premises network and your VPC, allowing you to extend your network seamlessly into the cloud
  • Direct Connect: Provides a dedicated network connection between your on-premises environment and AWS, offering a more reliable and consistent network experience
  • Application Load Balancer / Network Load Balancer: Load balancing solutions that distribute incoming traffic across multiple targets, such as EC2 instances or containers, ensuring high availability and scalability for your applications
  • Transit Gateway: Simplifies network connectivity between multiple VPCs and your on-premises networks, acting as a central hub for routing traffic and enabling seamless communication across a complex network architecture
  • VPN Gateway: Allows you to establish secure, encrypted connections between your VPC and your on-premises network or remote networks using IPsec VPN tunnels
  • VPC Endpoint Gateway: Enables secure communication between your VPC and supported AWS services over the Amazon network, without the need for an internet gateway or NAT device
  • VPC Peering Connection: Establishes a direct network connection between two VPCs, allowing them to communicate with each other using private IP addresses as if they were part of the same network
  • VPC Endpoint Interface: Enables private connectivity between your VPC and supported AWS services without requiring an internet gateway, NAT device, VPN connection, or public IP addresses

Cloudviz.io is equipped to visualize the majority of VPC elements, making it an invaluable asset for any product team. With Cloudviz.io, you can effortlessly create comprehensive AWS network diagrams that showcase essential VPC components such as subnets, availability zones, internet gateways, NAT gateways, VPC endpoints, load balancers, transit gateways, VPN gateways, VPC peering connections, and more. This holistic visualization enhances collaboration within product teams, enabling them to gain a clear understanding of the network architecture and make informed decisions for efficient resource allocation and network design.

We will now showcase awesome capabilities of Cloudviz.io by illustrating how it can visualize an AWS network diagram from scratch. We will begin with a simple AWS VPC diagram and progressively add various AWS resources, such as auto scaling groups, EC2 instances, load balancers, NAT gateway, RDS instances, VPC endpoints, VPN gateway and VPN site-to-site connections, additional VPC and transit gateway. By witnessing the gradual construction of the network diagram, you will witness firsthand the powerful features and flexibility offered by Cloudviz.io in creating comprehensive and visually appealing AWS network diagrams.

Simple AWS VPC Diagram

simple AWS network diagram

The simple VPC network diagram auto generated by Cloudviz.io showcases a well-structured architecture consisting of three availability zones and three sets of public and private subnets. The diagram includes essential components such as an internet gateway for connecting the VPC to the internet, as well as route tables to control traffic flow between the public and private subnets. This clear visualization provides a foundational understanding of the VPC's network layout and connectivity, facilitating efficient management and troubleshooting of the AWS infrastructure.

AWS Network Diagram With Load Balancer And EC2 Targets

Auto-Scaling With ALB AWS Network Diagram

This AWS network diagram illustrates a dynamic setup where EC2 instances are deployed in an auto-scaling group within the public subnet. These instances serve as targets for an Application Load Balancer (ALB), enabling efficient distribution of traffic across the instances. This diagram provides a visual representation of the scalable architecture, showcasing how the auto-scaling group and ALB work together to handle varying levels of demand and ensure high availability of the application.

Three-tier AWS Network Diagram

Three-tier AWS Network Diagram

The three-tier AWS network diagram showcases a comprehensive architecture that includes both external and internal Application Load Balancers (ALBs). The ALBs are configured to distribute traffic to EC2 instances running in auto-scaling groups, serving different parts of the application logic. In the public subnet, EC2 instances handle presentation and part of the application logic, while in the private subnet, EC2 instances serve the rest of the application logic. Private subnet instances can securely access an RDS database with a read replica for optimized read-heavy application scenarios. To enable internet access for the private subnet instances, a NAT Gateway is deployed. This AWS network diagram provides a detailed visualization of the infrastructure setup, highlighting the various components and their interactions in the application architecture. Cloudviz.io, an AWS network diagram generator, can efficiently capture and present this complex network configuration.

AWS Infrastructure Diagram With VPC Gateway Endpoint

AWS Infrastructure Diagram With VPC Gateway

In addition to the previous three-tier AWS architecture diagram, we have incorporated a VPC gateway endpoint to enhance the security and efficiency of accessing S3 buckets. This gateway endpoint enables the EC2 instances deployed within the VPC to securely communicate with S3 without the need to traverse the public internet. By leveraging this VPC gateway endpoint, data transfers between the EC2 instances and S3 buckets occur within the AWS network, providing an added layer of protection and improving network performance.

Site-to-Site VPN AWS Diagram

Site-to-Site VPN AWS Diagram

The Site-to-Site VPN AWS Diagram illustrates the establishment of a secure connection between an AWS VPC and a customer's on-premises site. This setup involves the deployment of a VPN Gateway (VPN GW) on the AWS side and a Customer Gateway (Customer GW) on the customer's and AWS side. The VPN site-to-site connection is then established between these gateways, enabling encrypted communication and seamless connectivity between the AWS VPC and the customer's on-premises infrastructure. This diagram showcases the integration of the VPN components, providing a visual representation of the secure network connectivity between the AWS cloud and the customer's environment.

Transit Gateway AWS Infrastructure Diagram

Transit Gateway AWS Infrastructure Diagram

In this AWS diagram generated by Cloudviz.io, you can clearly see the integration of a Transit Gateway (Transit GW) and Transit GW attachments. These components are strategically placed to establish a secure connection between the Production VPC and the Validation VPC, enabling seamless and secure access to resources deployed within the Production VPC. Cloudviz.io simplifies the visualization of complex network architectures, allowing you to easily understand and manage the transit gateway connections.

Export AWS Diagram to Draw.io / Diagrams.net

In addition to the built-in diagram editing features of Cloudviz.io, you have the option to export your AWS diagram directly to Draw.io, also known as Diagrams.net. This integration provides you with the flexibility to leverage the advanced editing capabilities of Draw.io, further enhancing and customizing your diagram. By exporting your AWS diagram to Draw.io, you can take advantage of the extensive library of shapes, symbols, and templates available, allowing you to create visually captivating and highly professional diagrams. This seamless integration between Cloudviz.io and Draw.io enables you to harness the power of both tools, empowering you to create, edit, and collaborate on AWS diagrams with utmost ease and versatility.



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