Amazon VPC Lattice
Service-to-service networking
A managed application networking layer that lets services (EC2, ECS, EKS, Lambda) call each other across many VPCs and accounts without peering or Transit Gateway; supports HTTP routing and IAM-based auth policies.
- Cost$$ Medium
- Difficulty●●●●●
- Costs money when idle?Yes
- Managed by AWS
- In examsSAA
Think of it asLike a company's internal directory: call by department name and the switchboard connects you and checks permissions.
When to use it
✓ Use it when
Microservices spread across many VPCs/accounts that need centralized connectivity and access control.
✗ Avoid it when
You only need IP connectivity between VPCs → Transit Gateway; exposing just one private service → PrivateLink.
Common uses
- Connecting microservices across many accounts
- Replacing App Mesh for service-to-service
- Applying IAM auth policies between services
What does it cost?
- Pricing model: Charged hourly per service, GB of data processed, and number of requests.
Related services
SAA-C03 study guide
VPC Lattice is covered in these study modules: