5 Benefits of Working with an AWS Partner Company
AWS Partner Network (APN): Overview and Functionality
The AWS Partner Network (APN) constitutes a worldwide coalition of technology and consulting enterprises, delivering an array of services and solutions centered around Amazon Web Services (AWS). APN partners specialize in various domains including cloud migration, application development, and infrastructure optimization. Through collaboration with APN partners, businesses harness specialized expertise and resources, expediting their adoption of AWS and realizing digital transformation objectives. APN serves as a catalyst for collaboration, innovation, and expansion, linking AWS clients with a global network of reliable partners.
Why work with an AWS Partner?
In business, standing out always grants an additional advantage! Partnering with an AWS Partner Company is essential in today’s business landscape, as the partner company provides specialized expertise in AWS for innovation and competitiveness. These firms dedicate a team that comprehends the unique needs, ensuring seamless communication and effective issue resolution. This collaboration enables a focus on core objectives while skilled professionals manage cloud complexities. Furthermore, AWS Partner Companies provide invaluable guidance on cloud adoption and optimization, fostering innovation and enriching customer value. With support from certified experts dedicated to satisfaction, partnering guarantees sustained growth and success in the digital era.
Benefits of Collaborating with an AWS Partner Company
Teaming up with an AWS partner company provides a host of benefits that greatly enhance business operations and outcomes, as their expertise guides in resolving any issue. Their mission is to simplify and guide. Here’s an overview of these advantages:
Efficient Cloud Transformation: Certified AWS partner companies excel in cloud technology, ensuring smooth transitions to AWS services. Leveraging their expertise, businesses migrate systems and applications seamlessly, minimizing disruptions. With their guidance, they navigate the complexities of cloud transformation, overcoming challenges, and seizing opportunities. This ensures swift transitions, enabling businesses to capitalize effectively on the numerous benefits of AWS services, including scalability, cost-efficiency, and accelerated innovation.
Optimal AWS Utilization: Partner companies utilize their extensive expertise to unleash the complete power of AWS services. Through collaboration, they comprehend the unique requirements of businesses, tailoring solutions to fully exploit AWS capabilities. This alignment ensures enhanced performance, scalability, and operational efficiency for businesses. Optimizing AWS utilization not only maximizes cloud investment value but also provides a competitive advantage in the ever-evolving digital realm. This strategic approach empowers organizations to thrive amidst dynamic technological landscapes.
Timely Issue Resolution: AWS partners offer dedicated support and proactive monitoring, swiftly identifying and resolving issues to minimize downtime and optimize cloud infrastructure and application performance. This proactive approach enhances business continuity and customer satisfaction. With the assistance of an AWS partner, businesses can promptly tackle issues, minimizing disruptions and maximizing productivity. This collaborative approach ensures the seamless operation of cloud environments, empowering businesses to confidently prioritize growth and innovation.
Cost-Effective Guidance: Partner companies play a crucial role in providing businesses with cost-effective guidance for informed cloud decisions. Through collaboration, they identify opportunities for cost savings and efficiency improvements, ensuring alignment with budgetary constraints. Leveraging the specialized expertise of AWS partners, businesses can achieve their goals without sacrificing quality or performance. This consultancy approach empowers businesses to optimize cloud adoption, architecture design, and optimization strategies, resulting in a strong return on investment. Moreover, it facilitates the maintenance of financial prudence and operational excellence through strategic and informed decisions regarding cloud infrastructure and resources.
Partner Proximity for Focus: Close collaboration with an AWS partner grants businesses access to a dedicated team, fostering smooth communication and swift issue resolution. This enables a focus on core competencies and strategic goals. Supported by the expertise of an AWS partner, businesses confidently delegate technical tasks, prioritizing innovation, growth, and customer value. This ensures seamless operation and optimization of their cloud infrastructure, driving sustained success in a rapidly evolving digital landscape.
In a nutshell, collaborating with an AWS partner company empowers businesses to efficiently transform their cloud infrastructure, optimize AWS utilization, resolve issues promptly, receive cost-effective guidance, and benefit from partner proximity for enhanced focus and collaboration. These benefits enable businesses to thrive in their cloud initiatives, driving long-term growth and success in an ever-evolving digital landscape.
CloudTern partnership with AWS
CloudTern, an AWS Partner, offers comprehensive AWS cloud services, including consulting, migration, deployment, database management, security, and managed services. Our seasoned experts collaborate with AWS to cater to diverse clients worldwide, expediting their transition to the cloud with innovation and enterprise infrastructure optimization. Committed to success, CloudTern leverages its profound AWS proficiency to assist organizations at any phase of their cloud data journey, ensuring the realization of business goals and maximizing the benefits of AWS.
Hybrid Cloud Architecture with CISCO CSR 1000v
Cisco CSR 1000v series is a router software appliance from Cisco. It provides enterprise routing, VPN, Firewall, IP SLA, and more.CSR 1000v can be used to connect multiple VPC across all-region in AWS Cloud and on-premise networks. Thus it can be used avoid managed VPN service from AWS.
In AWS, you can find Cisco CSR 1000v in AWS marketplace which has 30 days free trial to test it out. AWS Marketplace for Cisco. Be aware this is not cheap, it will cost you EC2 Instance charges. All instance types are not supported for CSR 1000v. It supports only m3 and c3 instance family types.
Cisco CSR 1000v Can be used in various network models in cloud like Transit VPC, multi-cloud Network.
Following is the Architecture I have used to connect multiple VPC.
The two VPC’s are one in N.Virginia region and other is in Ohio Region. And Each VPC has Internet Gateway and were connected over VPN. On Ohio region, we used AWS managed VPN service to connect VPC in N.Virginia region VPC. And On-Premise Edge Router we used Cisco RV110W small business router. In this Post, I would like to mention the steps to follow to establish VPN over two VPC’s spread in two different regions in AWS.
Steps to create VPC’s in two regions:
- Create VPC in N.Virginia Region with CIDR 10.0.0.0/16 and attach Internet Gateway to it. you can do it from CLI or through the management console.
aws ec2 create-vpc --cidr-block 10.0.0.0/16 --region us-east-1 Output: { "Vpc": { "VpcId": "vpc-848344fd", "InstanceTenancy": "dedicated", "Tags": [], "CidrBlockAssociations": [ { "AssociationId": "vpc-cidr-assoc-8c4fb8e7", "CidrBlock": "10.0.0.0/16", "CidrBlockState": { "State": "associated" } } ], "Ipv6CidrBlockAssociationSet": [], "State": "pending", "DhcpOptionsId": "dopt-38f7a057", "CidrBlock": "10.0.0.0/16", "IsDefault": false } } aws ec2 create-internet-gateway --region us-east-1 Output: { "InternetGateway": { "Tags": [], "InternetGatewayId": "igw-c0a643a9", "Attachments": [] } } aws ec2 attach-internet-gateway --gateway-id <<IGW-ID>> --vpc-id <<VPC-ID>> --region us-east-1
- Create two subnets in N.Virginia Region VPC, one for CSR 1000v with CIDR 10.0.0.0/24 and another subnet with CIDR 10.0.1.0/24.
aws ec2 create-subnet --cidr-block 10.0.0.0/24 --vpc-id <<VPC-ID>> --region us-east-1 Output: { "Subnet": { "VpcId": "vpc-a01106c2", "AvailableIpAddressCount": 251, "MapPublicIpOnLaunch": false, "DefaultForAz": false, "Ipv6CidrBlockAssociationSet": [], "State": "pending", "AvailabilityZone": "us-east-1a", "SubnetId": "subnet-2c2de375", "CidrBlock": "10.0.0.0/24", "AssignIpv6AddressOnCreation": false } } aws ec2 create-subnet --cidr-block 10.0.1.0/24 --vpc-id <<VPC-ID>> --region us-east-1 Output: { "Subnet": { "VpcId": "vpc-a01106c2", "AvailableIpAddressCount": 251, "MapPublicIpOnLaunch": false, "DefaultForAz": false, "Ipv6CidrBlockAssociationSet": [], "State": "pending", "AvailabilityZone": "us-east-1b", "SubnetId": "subnet-2c2de375", "CidrBlock": "10.0.1.0/24", "AssignIpv6AddressOnCreation": false } }
- Create Route Table in N.Virginia VPC which will have the default route to Internet Gateway.And associate CSR subnet to it.
4. Launch the CSR 1000v from AWS MarketPlace with the one-click launch. Link To AWS Marketplace, you can ssh into the CSR 1000v instance using ec2-user.Attach Elastic IP to the CSR instance which will act as Customer Gateway in N.Virginia Region VPC. In later steps, we will configure the router to add Static routes to other subnets in VPC and setting BGP to propagate routes over VPN Connection with other VPC.
5. In a similar fashion create VPC in AWS Ohio region with CIDR 10.1.0.0/16 And create two subnets with CIDR 10.1.0.0/24 and 10.1.1.0/24
Steps to Create VPN connection in AWS Ohio VPC
- Create Customer Gateway. Open VPC management console at console.aws.amazon.com. In navigation pane choose Customer Gateway and then create new Customer Gateway. Enter Name, Routing type as Dynamic and EIP of the CSR 1000v instance in N.Viriginia Region VPC. ASN number is 16-bit and must be in the range of 64512 to 65534.
- Create VPG and attach to the VPC.In the Navigation Pane choose Virtual Private Gateway and create VPG.
- Now Create VPN connection. In Navigation Pane Choose VPN Connection, Create New VPN Connection. Enter the Name, VPG and Customer Gateway which we have created previously, select routing type as Dynamic and create VPN connection.
It will take few minutes to create VPN connection. When it is ready to download the configuration for Cisco CSR from the drop-down menu.
Steps to establish VPN Connection on CSR 1000v
- Add static routes of other subnets in VPC(N.Virginia) to CSR 1000v. Every subnet in AWS has a virtual router with IP address of Subnet CIDR +1. As CSR router will be in Subnet 10.0.0.0/24 the virtual router IP address will be 10.0.0.1. The Virtual Router on each subnet has a route to other all subnets in the VPC.
>Configure terminal #ip route 10.0.1.0 255.255.255.0 10.0.0.1
- Configure BGP. Choose the ASN number which you gave while creating Customer Gateway in Ohio VPC. Above we gave 64512
> Configure terminal (config)#router bgp 64512 (Config-router)# timers bgp keepalive holdtime (Config-router)# bgp log-neighbor-changes (Config-router)# end
This step might not be necessary. But as good practice, I have applied the above configuration before copying the configuration file that is downloaded before.
- Apply the Configurations that are downloaded previously when VPN Connections Created. After you have applied those setting on CSR you can see on the management console that both the tunnels of VPN as UP.
Testing to check connectivity between two VPC’s
- Launch an instance in subnet1 in Ohio region VPC’s with Public IPv4. SSH into the instance and ping the CSR 1000v instance private IP.
- Similarly, you can check connectivity with Ohio Region VPC by pinging the instance in subnet1 in Ohio region VPC with its Private IP.
Troubleshooting :
> Route Propagation must be added to the route table in Ohio Region VPC.
> You must configure CSR 1000v as NAT, so the subnets in N.Virginia region can access the hosts in Ohio region VPC via CSR 1000v. You need to Update the route table with target fo CSR 1000v instance-id after making it as NAT.
> Allow ICMP in Security groups on all instances.
Thanks and Regards
Naveen
AWS Solution Architect @CloudTern
VPC Design Principles
Virtual Private Cloud(VPC) creation is the first step in building your infrastructure in AWS Cloud. AWS gave the flexibility to create VPC based on RFC4632 . Major Components of VPC : VPC CIDR, Subnets, Route Table, ACL and Security Groups. The VPC creation is a straightforward method just grab a CIDR based on RFC4632 but subnetting the VPC can consider the following principles.
Creation of Subnets:
Primary reasons to create Subnets
- You need hosts to be routed successfully.(Private facing or Public facing)
- Want to distribute Workload across multiple AZ’s( Availability Zones) for fault tolerance.
- Create Subnets for hosts that require additional layer of Security using ACL ( Access Control List)
Subnet the network into smaller networks which can be considered as Public Subnets, Private or VPN only subnets. These networks are supernets and not the actual subnets we create. Then subnet each supernet into smaller networks which you fit your hosts into it.
Note* : AWS reserves 5 IPs when you create a subnets. So more subnets you create more ips you will lose. For example for subnet 10.0.0.0/27 following IP’s are resolved
- 10.0.0.0 network address
- 10.0.0.1 Virtual Router address
- 10.0.0.2 DNS address
- 10.0.0.3 Reserved by AWS for future use.
- 10.0.0.31 Broadcast address
Route Tables
All the hosts within VPC can be routed to other hosts in the VPC using an implicit virtual router . A Default Virtual Router would be created when you create the subnet. For example a subnet with CIDR 10.0.0.0/27 will have Virtual Router with IP 10.0.0.1 ( Subnet CIDR + 1). This Router will utilize the route table entries of the subnet associated with.
Each Subnet should be associated with a Route Table for traffic to flow.If a subnet is not associated to any route table, it will use the default Main Route Table. Route Table can be associated with multiple subnets.
- Create Route Tables for Subnets that need different Routing requirements(Public facing or Private facing).
- Create Route Table for subnets that require more specific routing. For example a subnet may be needed to allow traffic only from a pool of IP address.
Access Control List(ACL)
ACL Provide security at Subnet Level. You can control what traffic to flow in and out of a subnet. ACL are stateful, i.e you have to define both ingress and outgress traffic in the rule list.
You can find more at ACL Overview
Create ACL if you want restrict any traffic to flow to the hosts in the subnets.
Network Address Translator (NAT)
A NAT is used to provide Outbound internet to the hosts inside Private Subnets. Route Tables for Private Subnets has to updated with logical id of NAT to provide Outbound Internet Connectivity to hosts inside private Subnet.
Based on the above principles ,a Concrete Example for Creating VPC in Practice is below
- Subnet the VPC CIDR to Public facing or Private facing Subnets.
- All Private facing subnets would be associated with a single Route Table, and ACL. The same would be applied for VPN Subnets and Public Subnets with different Route Tables and ACL
- Create a Subnet if more security is needed at subnet level using ACL and associate the subnet to Route Table.
The following figure shows the summary of VPC Design in AWS