Virtual private clouds (VPC) - Amazon Virtual Private Cloud
VPC basics
Services or capabilities described in Amazon Web Services documentation might vary by Region. To see the differences applicable to the China Regions, see Getting Started with Amazon Web Services in China (PDF).

Virtual private clouds (VPC)

A virtual private cloud (VPC) is a virtual network dedicated to your Amazon Web Services account. It is logically isolated from other virtual networks in the Amazon Cloud. You can launch Amazon resources, such as Amazon EC2 instances, into your VPC.

Your account contains a default VPC for each Amazon Region. You can also create additional VPCs.

Contents

VPC basics

A VPC spans all of the Availability Zones in a Region. After you create a VPC, you can add one or more subnets in each Availability Zone. For more information, see Subnets for your VPC.

VPC IP address range

When you create a VPC, you specify its IP addresses as follows:

  • IPv4 only – The VPC has an IPv4 CIDR block but does not have an IPv6 CIDR block.

  • Dual stack – The VPC has both an IPv4 CIDR block and an IPv6 CIDR block.

For more information, see IP addressing for your VPCs and subnets.

VPC diagram

The following diagram shows a VPC with no additional VPC resources. For example VPC configurations, see VPC examples.

A VPC that spans the Availability Zones for its Region.

VPC resources

Each VPC automatically comes with the following resources:

You can create the following resources for your VPC: