6 Best AWS Tools for Network Optimization

Quick Answer: The best AWS tools for network optimization include Amazon CloudWatch, CloudFormation, Direct Connect, and Amazon VPC Traffic Mirroring. 

Everyone wants to do their best, and we expect the same from our cloud network infrastructure. We count on our network to deliver services in the most efficient way possible. To make that possible, Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers a suite of tools to enhance and optimize your cloud network. 

In this article, we’ll explore six essential AWS tools that can help you achieve optimal network performance.

6 Network Optimization Tools from AWS

Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers more than 200 services across a range of cloud computing capabilities. Given all those services, it’s no surprise there are many ways to implement them – and some are better than others. Let’s have a look at some of the best tools available for the optimization of an AWS network.

1. Amazon CloudWatch

If your goal is to optimize networks on AWS, perhaps the best place to start is Amazon CloudWatch. With Amazon CloudWatch, you get a unified view of your cloud infrastructure and real time insights into applications, services, and network traffic so you can make improvements faster. 

If you really want enhanced networking, you may want to consider using Elastic network adapter (ENA) on your EC2 instances (virtual servers) to provide enhanced networking capabilities. And you can use a CloudWatch agent to collect network performance metrics from the ENA.

One particularly useful feature of CloudWatch is called Amazon CloudWatch Network Monitor. This service gives visibility into the performance of hybrid network connections between the Amazon cloud and an on-premises IP address. 

You can select multiple VPC subnet sources in the cloud, as well as multiple endpoint destination IP addresses on-premises. Network Monitor provides a visual representation showing network health, packet loss, and round-trip time. You can also create alarms based on network monitor metrics so you get immediate notifications when certain thresholds are reached.

Another tool is the Amazon CloudWatch Internet Monitor, which gives you a global view of internet traffic patterns. You can see major outages and other issues that may be impacting the performance of your cloud services and applications. With Internet Monitor, you can set up view logs that track internet events, or set up notifications in EventBridge. 

When you create a monitor for a specific AWS resource, you’ll see internet events that directly impact that resource. Based on insights from Internet Monitor, you can modify your cloud architecture to avoid known internet issues. 

2. AWS CloudFormation

There are many ways to configure network infrastructure in AWS. In a brand new AWS account, each region comes with a ready-made default virtual private cloud network (VPC). When you are ready to create your own, you can use the wizard in the AWS console to create a VPC only or to create a VPC with associated availability zones (AZ), subnets, and gateways. 

But there are more efficient ways to create networks in AWS. In AWS CloudFormation, you can create cloud infrastructure in a logical, repeatable way using something called Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC). The same way software developers prefer to write code once and re-use it where possible, an AWS professional can develop infrastructure using programmed instructions that can be deployed again in other regions or at other times.

Using a template written in either JSON or YAML format, you can build a CloudFormation stack in AWS. These templates can be simple or complex, and they can be used again and again. Suppose you want to create a VPC in CloudFormation. Here is sample IaC in YAML, the language that many prefer:

3. AWS Direct Connect

Hybrid networking with AWS comes with multiple options, including Site-to-Site VPN and Direct Connect. (We’ll also discuss the Transit Gateway below.) Since a Direct Connect is not shared with other customers, it offers significant advantages over an internet-based VPN connection. Direct Connect uses either a dedicated physical connection to a single customer or a hosted physical connection provisioned by an AWS Direct Connect Partner. 

The first benefit that comes to mind is the potential bandwidth available for AWS Direct Connect. While AWS Site-to-Site VPN is limited to a 1.25 Gbps connection maximum, Direct Connect offers connection speeds as high as 100 Gbps. 

Along with increased bandwidth, Direct Connect can reduce costs and offer scalability. Using industry standard 802.1q VLAN trunking, Direct Connect provides enhanced security as an isolated circuit, and gives users higher and more consistent network performance than Site-to-Site VPN.

4. AWS Global Accelerator

You might think all global IP traffic needs to go through the internet. That’s not true. AWS has their own network that is used to provide unfettered connectivity not affected by public internet traffic. AWS Global Accelerator uses static IP addresses that allows user services to communicate without the need for DNS. 

You can connect up to ten AWS regions to Global Accelerator that provide instant failover to another endpoint if there’s a customer application failure.

How much faster is AWS Global Accelerator than your normal public internet connection? Here’s an example showing Global Accelerator to be 50% faster in the Oregon region. Find out for yourself with the AWS Global Accelerator speed comparison. 

5. Amazon VPC Traffic Mirroring

You may be familiar with port mirroring from its traditional use in on-premises network switches. Amazon VPC Traffic Mirroring performs a similar function. By capturing traffic passing through an elastic network interface (ENI), Traffic Mirroring allows you to collect and store network traffic for further analysis.

What traffic you collect depends on the reason you need to capture it. You may want to use it to monitor threats, inspect packet contents, or troubleshoot a network issue. To gather the required data, you provide the source (ENI) and the target (your security or monitoring appliance), and you can filter traffic based on rules such as protocol and source port range.

Want to learn more about advanced AWS networking topics like this? The AWS Certified Advanced Networking - Specialty course offered by CBT Nuggets is a great place to start.

6. AWS Transit Gateway

For large cloud infrastructures, there’s no substitute for an AWS Transit Gateway. With Transit Gateway, you can connect up to 5,000 VPCs and on-premises environments. It is highly available and scalable, and it allows for simplified connections and flexible routing.

Consider the alternative: the normal way to connect two VPC together is through VPC peering. In this setup, each VPC maintains its own routing table. When you add a third VPC, you will then need to establish a VPC peering connection between each VPC. Since VPC peering is not transitive, you cannot establish routes that go through one VPC to another.

Enter the Transit Gateway. With this powerful and flexible service, you can use a single routing table to connect VPCs and on-premises networks. The Transit Gateway becomes a single hub, and new connections (called attachments) can be added incrementally.

Remember how we said that Transit Gateway can be a part of a hybrid cloud environment? That’s because it can be used to attach either a Site-to-Site VPN or a Direct Connect gateway. AWS Transit Gateway is indispensable for growing cloud infrastructures.

Conclusion

You may have learned to configure some AWS cloud network resources in the console or the CLI, but don’t stop there. AWS offers so many more tools and resources for network optimization. 

The networking tools in CloudWatch provide helpful insights into the performance of your connections. CloudFormation is an excellent way to use repeatable code for network architecture configuration.

Direct Connect provides a better experience for those who need a hybrid cloud architecture. Global Accelerator and Traffic Mirroring are great for your networking optimization toolkit. And Transit Gateway is a must for large cloud networks. There are always ways to make improvements, and there is plenty to learn as we continue our AWS journey.

Want to learn more about network optimization? The CBT Nuggets AWS Certified Advanced Networking - Specialty (ANS-C01) online course is a great place to start.