162. Design a Virtual Private Cloud like Amazon VPC

The brief

Design a Virtual Private Cloud like Amazon VPC. Isolated tenant networks on one shared fabric: an overlay keyed by VPC id, rules on every host's Nitro card, a mapping service per AZ, gateways as fleets. Work from the scoping questions below. State assumptions for any unspecified load, guarantee or target, then trace your design end to end. Explain one difficult case and a credible alternative; the worked example is a reference, not a required implementation.

• Set the scope: Scale? How fast do changes apply?
• Define the contract: Stateful or stateless filtering? Which ways out?
• Test the boundaries: During a control-plane outage? Logs? Peering and transit?

Constraints

Explicit scope and guarantees

Resolve the scoping questions for a Virtual Private Cloud like Amazon VPC. Separate stated behavior from assumptions, and identify what is outside your design.

Supported operating targets

Declare relevant volume, latency, freshness, quality or cost targets with units. Show calculations or an evaluation plan that can test them; unspecified targets are your assumptions, not hidden pass criteria.

Failure and boundary behavior

Explain how your guarantees hold in a difficult case relevant to this subject. Address: Logs? Peering and transit?

What to cover

1. 01

   Scope and behavior contract

   Identify users, required behavior and exclusions. Answer: Scale? How fast do changes apply?

2. 02

   State and interfaces

   Define the information owned by the system and the inputs, outputs and errors at its boundaries. Resolve: Stateful or stateless filtering? Which ways out?

3. 03

   Capacity and operating targets

   Estimate the dominant workload and resource demand with units and explicit assumptions. For a learned system, also state how quality is measured and what data is available.

4. 04

   Architecture and central flow

   Draw or describe the responsibilities needed for a Virtual Private Cloud like Amazon VPC. Trace a representative request, event or job from its input to a visible result; identify durable state owners.

5. 05

   Failure and boundary walkthrough

   Walk through a difficult case step by step, including detection and recovery. Consider: During a control-plane outage? Logs? Peering and transit?

6. 06

   Tradeoffs and operations

   Compare a credible alternative using your chosen workload and guarantees. Explain a remaining risk, a signal to watch and when you would change the design.

Worked designs

Explore the architecture and decisions, then build on an example with Coach.

Official design

Design a Virtual Private Cloud like Amazon VPC

Isolated tenant networks on one shared fabric: an overlay keyed by VPC id, rules on every host's Nitro card, a mapping service per AZ, gateways as fleets: one-hour boards for junior, senior and staff, with the theory behind them.

Explore the design

Review rubric

AI feedback uses these criteria. Scores are practice feedback.