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Cloud Computing · Foundational

NAT Gateway

Managed network address translation service that lets private-subnet resources initiate outbound internet connections while blocking inbound ones.

Definition

In AWS, a NAT gateway is created in a public subnet with an Elastic IP and is zonal, so highly available designs deploy one per AZ with private route tables pointing to the local gateway. It charges hourly plus per GB processed, and gateway VPC endpoints can avoid NAT charges for S3 and DynamoDB traffic. Azure NAT Gateway and Google Cloud NAT provide similar outbound-only functions.

Example

Private application servers download patches through a NAT gateway in each AZ.

Exam tip

One NAT gateway for all AZs is a single point of failure and incurs cross-AZ data charges; use one per AZ.

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