A BinaryLane VPC provides private IPv4 networking between your servers. If you only have one server, or are unlikely to need private connectivity between two or more servers, you likely do not need a VPC.
Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) is a technology that allows you to create your own virtual network within BinaryLane, that isolates your cloud servers on their own private network.
Each VPC has its own private IP address range that you select during creation, such as 10.240.0.0/16. Because the virtual network is dedicated to your use, you may use whatever IP address range you like.
How networking behaves when a server is attached to a VPC
Attaching a server to a VPC does not remove its public IP address or public connectivity. The server continues to use its public network path for normal internet-facing traffic, while the VPC adds a separate private networking path for internal communication between servers on the same VPC.
This means a VPC is typically used for internal service communication, for example:
- database connections
- monitoring and metrics
- log shipping
- configuration management
- internal service tiers such as caches, load balancers, and other backend components
There are two common networking modes for servers attached to a VPC:
- Default mode
A single virtual network interface carries both the server's public and private addresses. - Split NIC (Dedicated Interface)
The server receives two virtual interfaces: one public interface for internet traffic, and one private interface for VPC traffic.
Public and VPC networking operate independently:
- public traffic continues to route via the server's public interface
- VPC traffic uses the private interface and VPC networking path
- an issue affecting the VPC network should not affect the server's public connectivity
In practical terms, use a VPC when you want servers to communicate privately with each other, while still keeping their normal public access for internet-facing services, updates, management, and customer traffic.
IPv6 and VPC behaviour
BinaryLane VPC private networking is currently IPv4-only.
IPv6 addresses are not available on NAT-mode VPC networking.
If you enable Split NIC (Dedicated Interface), your server has:
- a public NIC (internet-facing), and
- a private VPC NIC (internal VPC traffic).
In this mode, IPv6 can be assigned on the public NIC.
However, IPv6 traffic between two servers in the same VPC will use the public path (public NIC ↔ upstream ↔ public NIC), not the VPC private fabric.
For private east-west traffic (database, Elasticsearch, monitoring, etc.), use VPC private IPv4 addresses.
Please note: a VPC does not provide a VPN endpoint by default. If you need VPN connectivity into your VPC, you will need to create a VPS to use as your VPN server/endpoint within the VPC.
A VPC information page with example use-cases is available here.
There are two VPC guides available here.