AWS announces UDP support for AWS PrivateLink and dual-stack Network Load Balancers

Posted on: Oct 31, 2024

Today, we are launching support for the UDP protocol on AWS PrivateLink over IPv4 and IPv6, and on AWS Network Load Balancer (NLB) over IPv6. Until now, AWS PrivateLink only supported TCP, while NLB supported UDP only over IPv4. This launch enables customers who use AWS PrivateLink and clients that use IPv6 to access UDP-based applications such as media-streaming, gaming, VoIP and other applications.

AWS Network Load Balancer is a high performance layer 4 load balancer that provides availability and scalability to applications while serving as the single point of contact for clients. To use this capability as a service-owner, you can now create a UDP listener on your existing or newly created dual-stack NLBs. A dual-stack NLB supports both IPv4 and IPv6, and can process client requests that use either IP version.

AWS PrivateLink is a highly available and scalable service that enables you to privately connect your VPC to supported AWS services, services hosted by other AWS accounts (VPC Endpoint Services) and third-party SaaS services on the AWS Marketplace. You can attach the NLB to a VPC Endpoint Service, enabling clients to connect over AWS PrivateLink. Customers that access services over AWS PrivateLink can now create VPC endpoint of type ‘interface’ to access UDP-based Endpoint Services, just like they access TCP-based services today.

There are no additional charges for this capability. Standard charges for AWS PrivateLink and Network Load Balancer apply. The capability is available in all commercial AWS Regions and the AWS GovCloud (US) Regions. To learn more, read this launch blog or visit AWS PrivateLink and AWS Network Load Balancer in the Amazon VPC Developer Guide.