A Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) is the backbone of nearly every AWS configuration. If it has to do with networking, then a VPC will be involved.

Amazon provides a default VPC when you create your account, but it is likely that you will create your own as you build out your environment.

The examples below will create a new Virtual Private Cloud with an address range of 10.0.0.0/16.

AWS CLI

aws ec2 create-vpc --cidr-block 10.0.0.0/16

{
    "Vpc": {
        "OwnerId": "941377140019",
        "InstanceTenancy": "default",
        "Ipv6CidrBlockAssociationSet": [],
        "CidrBlockAssociationSet": [
            {
                "AssociationId": "vpc-cidr-assoc-0a5bc83743831e186",
                "CidrBlock": "10.0.0.0/16",
                "CidrBlockState": {
                    "State": "associated"
                }
            }
        ],
        "IsDefault": false,
        "VpcId": "vpc-0fbacb611b69b8966",
        "State": "pending",
        "CidrBlock": "10.0.0.0/16",
        "DhcpOptionsId": "dopt-0cea263816438a9ab"
    }
}

The values in your output will be different. Once the command completes, you should be able to see the VpcId in the AWS Console.

Terraform

resource "aws_vpc" "basic-aws-vpc" {
  cidr_block = "10.0.0.0/16"
  enable_dns_hostnames = "true"

  tags = {
    Name = "Basic VPC"
  }
}