AWS NAT Gateway
AWS NAT Gateway is a managed network address translation (NAT) service provided by Amazon Web Services that allows resources in a private subnet to connect to the internet or other AWS services while preventing inbound connections from the internet. It automatically scales to handle traffic and provides high availability within an Availability Zone. It is a fully managed service, eliminating the need for users to provision and manage their own NAT instances.
Developers should use AWS NAT Gateway when building secure VPC architectures where private instances (e.g., application servers, databases) need outbound internet access for updates, patches, or accessing external APIs, without exposing them to inbound traffic. It is essential for compliance and security in scenarios like egress-only internet gateways for IPv6 or when deploying resources in isolated subnets, such as in multi-tier applications or data processing pipelines.