GCP Private Service Connect for Secure and Efficient Service Integration

Introduction

Securely connecting and integrating services across different environments is crucial for businesses in the cloud computing era. Google Cloud Platform (GCP) offers a powerful networking solution called GCP Private Service Connect, which enables secure and private communication between services. This blog post will provide an overview of GCP Private Service Connect, its benefits, and how it can enhance connectivity and streamline cloud integration.

Key Features and Benefits

• Secure and Private Communication – Private Service Connect ensures that traffic flows securely over private networks, providing enhanced security compared to traditional internet-based connections. It eliminates the need to expose services publicly, reducing the attack surface and potential vulnerabilities.
• Improved Performance and Latency – By leveraging Private Service Connect, you can establish direct connections with services, avoiding the latency and potential congestion of public internet networks. This results in faster and more reliable communication between your services and GCP resources.
• Simplified Networking Architecture – Private Service Connect simplifies the networking architecture by abstracting away the complexities of managing public IP addresses, firewalls, and NAT gateways. It provides a seamless and integrated approach to connecting and consuming services within your VPC network.

Use Cases

• Private Access to Google Services and APIs – Private Service Connect enables private access to various Google services and APIs such as Cloud Storage, BigQuery, Pub/Sub, and more. You can securely transfer data between your VPC network and these services by establishing private connections without traversing the public internet.
• Securely Connect to Partner Services – Private Service Connect allows you to connect and consume services provided by third-party partners securely. This is especially useful when integrating with SaaS providers, managed databases, or other external services, ensuring secure and private data exchange.
• Intra-org Services – Private Service Connect facilitates secure and seamless application integration using separate VPCs for internal segmentation and GCP resources. Establishing private connections allows you to extend your network across all application components without compromising security or performance.

Step-by-Step Guide

In the below steps, we implement Private Service Connect to understand how to access Google storage API from a virtual machine without having Public IP and Internet,

Step 1 – Create a custom VPC network and a subnet with the CIDR of your choice.

Ensure that Private Google Access is ‘on’ while creating the Subnet.

Add ssh firewall rules for the VPC required for the VM access.

Step 2 – Create a storage bucket and create some demo text files inside the Bucket.

Step 3 – Go to Compute Engine and create a VM instance. In the Network Management section, choose the VPC and Subnet created earlier and choose External IP as None, so there will be no Public IP assigned.

Ensure the VM has access to the Cloud storage bucket created earlier.

SSH into the VM using IAP or using a third-party tool. Run the curl command below to access the storage bucket through API

You should be able to access the contents of the file inside the bucket. This is because there will be a route to Internet Gateway in VPC configurations, and the Private Google Access will route traffic through this Gateway.

Go to Route Management in your VPC and delete the route to Internet Gateway, as shown below.

After removing the route, try accessing the bucket from the VM instance again. The request will be Timeout.

Step 4 – Now, we will configure Private Service Connect to access the storage bucket without the Internet.

Go to Network Services -> Private Service Connect and click Add Connect Endpoint. Select target as All Google APIs and select a Name and Network as below,

In the IP address section, create a new static IP of your choice, as shown in the below snippet. IP should not conflict with any of the existing Internal IPs of VPCs.

Save and click on Add Endpoint. An Endpoint will be created after some time. Note that a DNS zone and a Service directory will also be created as part of the Private Endpoint.

Step 5 – Now try to access the storage bucket using the private endpoint, and you should be able to access the contents of the storage object.

Run the below curl command to access the storage API through a private endpoint.

Conclusion

GCP Private Service Connect offers a powerful solution for establishing secure and private connections between your VPC network and various services. By leveraging this feature, you can enhance security, improve performance, and simplify network architecture. Private Service Connect empowers businesses to build robust and integrated cloud solutions while ensuring data privacy and network integrity.

Embracing GCP Private Service Connect can be a game-changer for organizations seeking secure and efficient cloud integration. Start exploring this feature and unlock the full potential of secure and private connectivity within your Google Cloud environment.

Remember, in the evolving cloud landscape, connectivity matters, and Private Service Connect can be your reliable companion in building a secure and interconnected cloud ecosystem.

Drop a query if you have any questions regarding GCP Private Service Connect and we will get back to you quickly.

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