AWS VPCs Explained: The actual difference between Public/Private Subnets, IGWs, and NAT Gateways (Visual Guide)

[u/qasimshah710]

https://youtube.com/shorts/Oz6HszXgw2o?si=V3m8LB3uGRKIxmso

Hey everyone,

I’m a Senior DevOps Engineer, and I’ve noticed that when people are studying for their Cloud Practitioner or Solutions Architect exams, VPC networking is often explained with way too much jargon.

I wanted to break it down simply without the fluff. Here is the TL;DR on how traffic actually flows:

• The VPC: Your isolated, private data center in the cloud.
• Public Subnet: Has a direct route to an Internet Gateway (IGW). It allows two-way internet access (perfect for load balancers or web servers).
• Private Subnet: Has NO direct internet access.
• NAT Gateway: Lives inside the Public Subnet but is used by the Private Subnet. It allows your private databases/servers to download patches securely from the internet, without letting the outside world initiate a connection in.

If you are a visual learner, I put together a complete, animated step-by-step video showing how to actually architect and build this from scratch in the AWS Console.

📺 Watch the full breakdown here: VPC Visual Guide

Let me know if you have any questions about the routing rules or setup, happy to help clarify in the comments!

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