Google Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)
Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) providers
Virtual private cloud (VPC) software
Private cloud software
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What is Google Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)
Google Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) is a software-defined networking service within Google Cloud that lets organizations create isolated, private networks for cloud resources. It is used by cloud and network teams to segment environments, control routing and firewall policies, and connect workloads across regions and to on-premises networks. The service supports global VPC networks, shared VPC for multi-project governance, and integration with Google Cloud security and connectivity services.
Global, software-defined networking
Google VPC supports global VPC networks that can span multiple regions while using a consistent set of network policies. This reduces the need to stitch together separate regional networks for many architectures. It also supports custom route management and subnet design to fit different application topologies.
Strong segmentation and governance
The platform provides network segmentation using subnets, firewall rules, and hierarchical policy options that can be applied across projects and folders. Shared VPC enables centralized network administration while allowing application teams to deploy resources in separate projects. This model supports common enterprise patterns such as separating billing, IAM boundaries, and network controls.
Broad connectivity options
Google VPC integrates with hybrid and interconnect options to link cloud networks to on-premises and other environments. It supports VPN connectivity and dedicated connectivity services available in Google Cloud. These options help organizations implement hybrid architectures and controlled ingress/egress paths.
Google Cloud ecosystem dependence
Google VPC is tightly coupled to Google Cloud services, tooling, and operational concepts. Organizations standardizing on multiple cloud providers may need additional abstraction layers and duplicated network policy work. Portability of network constructs and security policies across environments is limited.
Complexity at enterprise scale
Large environments can accumulate many projects, subnets, routes, firewall rules, and shared VPC relationships that require careful design and ongoing governance. Misconfiguration risk increases as teams scale and as hybrid connectivity is added. Effective operation often requires mature infrastructure-as-code practices and strong change control.
Not a private cloud stack
While it provides private networking for cloud resources, it does not deliver a full private cloud platform for running the same control plane in a customer-managed data center. Organizations seeking an on-premises cloud stack typically need separate products for compute, storage, and management layers. This can introduce additional integration and operational overhead for hybrid private-cloud goals.
Plan & Pricing
Pricing model: Pay-as-you-go (usage-based)
Free tier/trial:
- Google Cloud Free Trial: $300 Welcome credit for new customers (use within 91 days). (Product-level Free Tier / Always Free monthly usage limits also apply where noted.)
- Several VPC items have free or $0.00 bands (for example: inbound data transfer is no charge; many internet egress SKUs show 0–1 GiB = $0.00). See Examples below.
Key example costs (official Google Cloud VPC / Cloud NAT pricing):
- VM-to-VM (same zone, internal IP): No charge.
- VM-to-VM (different zones, same region): $0.01 per GiB.
- Premium Tier — Internet data transfer out to North America (per GiB):
- 0–1 GiB: $0.00 / GiB
- 1–1,024 GiB: $0.12 / GiB
- 1,024–10,240 GiB: $0.11 / GiB
- 10,240+ GiB: $0.08 / GiB
- Premium Tier — Internet data transfer out to Europe (per GiB): 0–1 GiB $0.00; 1–1,024 GiB $0.12; 1,024–10,240 GiB $0.11; 10,240+ GiB $0.085 / GiB.
- Premium Tier — Internet data transfer out to Australia/Indonesia/Korea/South America/Saudi Arabia (per GiB): 0–1,024 GiB $0.19; 1,024–10,240 GiB $0.18; 10,240+ GiB $0.15.
- External IP addresses:
- Static external IP (assigned but unused): $0.01 per hour.
- Static/ephemeral external IPs in use on standard VMs: $0.005 per hour.
- Static/ephemeral external IPs in use on preemptible/Spot VMs: $0.0025 per hour.
- External IPs attached to forwarding rules or used for Cloud VPN tunnel: No charge.
- Cloud NAT (Public NAT / Private NAT):
- NAT gateway hourly pricing: up to 32 assigned VM instances = $0.0014 * (# of VM instances) per hour (capped at the 32-instance rate); >32 instances = $0.044 per hour.
- NAT data processing: $0.045 per GiB (inbound + outbound processed by NAT gateway).
- Hourly price per static/ephemeral external IP used by NAT gateway (Public NAT): $0.005 per hour.
- Network Telemetry (VPC Flow Logs, Firewall Rules Logging, Cloud NAT logging):
- 0–10,240 GiB: $0.25 per GiB; 10,240–30,720 GiB: $0.15 per GiB; 30,720–51,200 GiB: $0.075 per GiB; 51,200+ GiB: $0.05 per GiB.
- Packet Mirroring: $0.008 per GiB (inbound data processed by Packet Mirroring).
- Serverless VPC Access: connector instances are billed as Compute Engine VM instances (e.g., f1-micro, e2-micro, e2-standard-4); data transfer out charged at Compute Engine networking rates.
Discounts / commercial options:
- Google Cloud pricing is pay-as-you-go; for large/custom needs contact sales or request a custom quote. (Cloud NAT and other pages reference contacting sales for quotes.)
Notes / scope:
- Prices vary by region and by Network Service Tier (Premium vs Standard). Standard Tier has different (generally lower-quality but cheaper) rates and some Always Free limits do not apply to Standard Tier.
- Many related networking products (Cloud VPN, Interconnect, Load Balancing, Cloud CDN, etc.) have separate SKUs and may incur additional charges.
- All prices quoted above are taken from Google Cloud’s official VPC and Cloud NAT pricing documentation and are listed in USD.
Seller details
Google LLC
Mountain View, CA, USA
1998
Subsidiary
https://cloud.google.com/deep-learning-vm
https://x.com/googlecloud
https://www.linkedin.com/company/google/
