When building your VirtualCloud network, there are many things you need to consider before you get started. Of course, getting your infrastructure configured is the first step, but you need to understand several important technical details. You must learn about subnets, the security list, the routing table, and scaling your network with physical components. By the time you’re done, you should clearly understand the process.
Subnets
VirtualCloud networks can be configured to have many different subnets for the resources within the network. Each subnet defines a range of IPv4 and IPv6 addresses used to communicate between the resources. There are two kinds of subnets: primary and secondary. The primary subnets are used for the resources themselves, and secondary subnets provide alias IP ranges.
A public subnet can also have a security list, default route, and route table. If a security list is associated with the subnet, the compute instance cannot connect to the internet. This security feature must be used to protect the resources from unauthorized access.
Security list
The default security list created when you create your virtual cloud network portfolio does not include a rule that allows traffic to reach your VM. You can create a separate security list and change the default to fix this. Ensure you don’t enable any rules that allow ingress to Secure Shell on port 22.
Security lists can be associated with compute instances, network security groups, or both. A VNIC determines how a compute instance connects to endpoints within the virtual cloud network. It has a private IP and associated security lists. A VCN may contain multiple subnets, and a VNIC connects these resources.
Route table
In a VirtualCloud Network, the routing table defines how traffic is routed. There are several kinds of routes, including static routes and dynamic routes. Real-time network adjustments are made using the latter.
Both static and dynamic routes support the TCP/IP protocol.
Virtual cloud routing makes network modernization and quick deployment of hybrid multi-cloud architectures possible. In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of remote workers, companies have devoted considerable resources to this strategy.
A routing table defines the target and destination addresses for traffic. It differentiates routes to IPv4 addresses and IPv6 addresses and routes to CIDR blocks. It also defines the priority of routes. Inbound traffic from a VPC to its gateway appliance is routed through the routing table by default. The route table can be modified at a later time.
Scaling your network with physical components
Virtual Cloud Networks can make scaling your network a lot easier than it is with traditional networking. In a traditional network, you need to buy or rent more servers or add storage units to existing servers to accommodate the additional users. A virtual environment makes scaling easy and makes it possible to integrate new capabilities seamlessly. Some VCNs can even automatically scale your network, making the process easier.
To achieve this, you can use two different methods of scaling: vertical scaling and horizontal scaling. Vertical scaling involves adding or subtracting resources from the existing cloud server. However, this method typically has an upper limit based on the server’s available capacity. If you need to scale beyond this limit, you may undergo downtime. On the other hand, horizontal scaling involves adding more resources to an existing cloud server by spreading the workload across multiple machines. This option is especially important if your application requires high availability.
