As workloads grow in number over time, one needs to keep pace by scaling their networks over numerous accounts and Amazon Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs). That can be done by peering VPCs together, but without the capacity to manage connectivity policies in one place, handling point-to-point connectivity when you have too many Amazon VPCs will prove extraordinarily difficult, costly, and time-consuming.
Amazon Transit Gateway solves that problem by allowing you to connect your Amazon VPCs with your onsite networks using one gateway. With Transit Gateway, you now have a hub for managing traffic throughout your network; you handle only one connection from the central gateway into each Amazon VPC, on-site data center, and remote office within your network. Given that each network needs to connect only to Transit Gateway, you lower operating costs and make managing your networks a breeze.
Why use Amazon Transit Gateway
- Simplifies Connectivity
Transit Gateway lets you quickly connect to one central gateway, making it is easier for users to interconnect to all VPCS and onsite networks, regardless of how many connected accounts there are. Transit Gateway also supports dynamic and static layer 3 between Amazon VPCs and VPNs.
- Facilitates Greater Control and Monitoring
AWS Transit Gateway allows users to monitor and manage all their Amazon VPC and edge connections in one place. The service makes it easier to find issues and handle events as they come. You may also enable Equal Cost Multipath (ECMP) between these connections in order to load balance between paths and increase bandwidth.
- Bandwidth On Demand
You may obtain the network bandwidth you need to move terabytes of data at a time for your applications, or even migrate into the cloud. You may add Amazon VPCs to your network without needing to provision extra connections from on-site networks.
- Highly Secure
With its integration with IAM, users may control who can access Transit Gateway. Create and manage user accounts and groups and establish permission for them centrally.
Pricing
This service charges you per number of connections you attach to the Transit Gateway per hour, and also for each GB of data processed. The owner is billed per hour their Amazon VPCs or VPN are connected, starting from the instant the VPC is connected to Transit Gateway and until the VPC is disconnected. Note that a portion of an hour is still billed as one full hour.
What You Can Do With It
- Deliver Apps Across the Globe – You can create applications across thousands of Amazon VPCs without having to use a distributed network. Even with peering, handling numerous VPCs means the extra hardship of deploying and managing route tables. Transit Gateway lessens the number of routes considerably; you only configure to route to Transit Gateway instead of per VPC.
- Create a Global Network – Transit Gateway lets you easily share AWS Services, DNS, IPS/IDS, and Active Directory across all connected Amazon VPCs. It scales AWS services as your network grows around the world.
- Handle Sudden Workload Demands Better – with the unpredictable nature of demand, you need to quickly adapt network capacity to handle it when it comes. Transit Gateway lets you add more Amazon VPCs and AWS accounts to meet excess demand on your workloads.
Marco is a managing partner at copebit. He got seven AWS certifications. He has spent three years in Australia and has worked with AWS and DevOps technologies for the last 6 years.