Amazon Web Services (AWS), an Amazon.com company, has launched Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC), a secure bridge between a company’s existing IT infrastructure and the AWS cloud.
According to AWS, the Amazon VPC allows enterprises to connect their existing infrastructure to a set of isolated AWS compute resources through a Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection, and to extend their existing management capabilities such as security services, firewalls, and intrusion detection systems to include their AWS resources. It integrates with Amazon EC2 compute resources, and is expected to integrate with other AWS services in the future.
With Amazon VPC, AWS customers can create an isolated set of AWS resources which can be accessed through an encrypted IPsec Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection. Using a few API calls, users can create their isolated network, specify the IP address range, and launch Amazon EC2 instances into that network. Then, users can create a secure VPN to bridge those AWS resources to their existing IT infrastructure, the company said.
Amazon Web Services has also launched AWS Multi-Factor Authentication (AWS MFA), which offers customers the capability to access and control their AWS accounts.
The company said that the AWS MFA provides an additional layer of security to the administration of a customer’s AWS account by requiring additional information to confirm a user’s identity. It will be offered as an optional feature of AWS accounts and can be setup through AWS website.
Andy Jassy, SVP of AWS, said: “As more and more enterprises leverage the cloud, they want a simple, seamless way to migrate their large and complex IT infrastructures to AWS, and to use the security and management controls that their IT teams already know. We built Amazon VPC for this purpose—to allow any company to seamlessly connect their existing resources to the AWS cloud as if it were a part of their own datacentre.”