Today marks an exciting development for DigitalOcean customers as they announce the Early Access launch of Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) Peering. This comes after a successful preview in August and includes enhancements like auto-route injection and VPC-native Kubernetes (DOKS), making private cloud networking simpler than ever.

For small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) aiming to connect workloads across various regions or scale beyond a single VPC, DigitalOcean’s VPC Peering offers quick and secure private connectivity. This feature simplifies complex networking setups and avoids exposing data to the public internet, enabling users to manage isolated cloud environments with ease.

Understanding VPC Peering

VPC Peering allows you to connect different VPCs within your DigitalOcean account, irrespective of the region in which the VPCs are located. Once peering is established, resources such as Droplets, Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS), and DOKS clusters can communicate using private IPs, as if they were on the same network. Depending on your account type, you can establish up to 50 peering connections, facilitating the creation of distributed network architectures effortlessly.

Traditional methods for achieving similar connectivity, such as IPsec tunnels or third-party VPNs, often require complex configurations and ongoing management. DigitalOcean’s VPC Peering addresses these challenges by offering a straightforward, cost-effective solution that eliminates the need for manual networking configurations, streamlining connectivity with just a few clicks.

Key Benefits of DigitalOcean’s VPC Peering

1. Secure, Private Connectivity: Easily connect two VPCs within the same region to enable private communication over private IPs without the need to use the public internet. The MACsec encrypted backbone ensures end-to-end data security, protecting your traffic from interception and unauthorized access.
2. Seamless Multi-Region Scaling: By connecting VPCs across different regions, you can efficiently scale your development, testing, or production environments. This setup ensures high availability and smooth communication, all while maintaining predictable latency.
3. Simplified Network Management: Setting up VPC Peering requires minimal configuration, allowing for private IP communication across VPCs without the complexity associated with VPNs or tunneling.
4. Safeguards for Regulated Industries: Industries such as healthcare and finance can benefit from VPC Peering to safeguard sensitive data by keeping communication off the public internet.
5. Effortless Integration with Other DigitalOcean Products: VPC Peering integrates seamlessly with Droplets, Kubernetes (DOKS), and Databases, offering a unified approach to infrastructure management without the need for third-party tools.
6. Simplicity at Its Core: Setting up VPC Peering is incredibly simple. With just a few clicks, you can establish bi-directional peering between VPCs, enabling seamless workload scaling across regions.
   

   How to Create VPC Peering?
   

   For those interested in setting up VPC Peering, DigitalOcean provides comprehensive documentation and guides. You can explore their product documentation and API documentation for step-by-step instructions.

   Limitations
   

   While VPC Peering offers numerous advantages, there are some limitations to be aware of:

   • Inter-Team VPC Peering is not supported.
   • Inter-Data Center VPC Peering is not available in the BLR1 data center.
   • VPC Native DOKS Clusters are only available for newly created DOKS Clusters through API/CLI, meaning existing DOKS clusters cannot enable VPC native pod/service networks.
   • Auto-route Injection is available for Droplets created after October 2, 2024; existing Droplets need to have their networking stack restarted to incorporate necessary peering route information.
   • Auto-route Injection is available for both existing and new MongoDB clusters. Other managed databases created after September 9, 2024, are configured for VPC peering.
     

     Pricing That Scales With Your Business
     

     As of October 15, 2024, VPC Peering egress data transfer within a data center is offered free of charge. For data transfers between data centers, a cost of $0.01 per GiB is applicable, regardless of the region. For more detailed information, you can view their pricing details.

     Promotional Credit
     

     DigitalOcean is offering a $12 credit covering 1200 GiB of data transfer on VPC egress for the first 12 months since the Early Access release, with up to 100 GiB per month. This promotional credit is applicable for all customers, limited to one promotion per customer. The first credit will be added to your account, prorated to match the monthly price of VPC Egress Data Transfer, capped at $1/month (equivalent to 100 GiB/month) for each of your first 12 billable calendar months. All promotional credit and discount offers are subject to their Terms and Conditions.

     Get Started Today
     

     To enhance your connectivity with other VPCs, achieve multi-region scalability, and ensure reliable network performance, all designed to fit your budget, explore DigitalOcean’s VPC Peering. Visit their product documentation for a detailed guide, or reach out to their sales team for assistance with migration support and architecture review.

     This innovative feature opens up new possibilities for businesses looking to streamline their cloud infrastructure management and optimize network performance, making DigitalOcean’s VPC Peering a noteworthy development in the realm of cloud computing.

For more Information, Refer to this article.