Amazon Web Services Upgrades Virtual Private Cloud With Internet Access
Users can actually specify which of their Amazon VPC resources they wish to make directly accessible to the Internet and which they do not. Customers have more control over the virtual networking environment, including selection of IP address range, creation of subnets, and configuration of route tables and network gateways.
Part of today’s upgrade offers more customization for VPC users. Enterprise users can create a public-facing subnet for web servers that have access to the Internet, and placing backend systems such as databases or application servers in a private-facing subnet with no Internet access (and a VPN connection).
Users can also store data in storage device Amazon S3 and set permissions so the data can only be accessed from within Amazon VPC or attach an Amazon Elastic IP Address to any Amazon VPC instance so it can be reached directly from the Internet.
Essentially this gives enterprises more flexibility with making private clouds either more accessible or private. As companies become comfortable with a more public facing cloud, it makes sense to give users options with their data security.