You can convert an existing NAT service plan to an EIP bandwidth plan. EIP bandwidth plans support bandwidth sharing and transfer on a regional scale. After you purchase an EIP bandwidth plan, you can associate all elastic IP addresses (EIPs) that are in the same region with the EIP bandwidth plan. This way, the EIPs can share the bandwidth of the EIP bandwidth plan. This reduces bandwidth costs.

Considerations

When you convert a NAT service plan to an EIP bandwidth plan, no network disconnections occur. Therefore, your workloads are not affected. After conversion:
  • The public IP addresses in the NAT service plan are converted to EIPs.
  • The NAT service plan is converted to an EIP bandwidth plan, which is easier to manage and more cost-effective.
  • If the conversion fails, you can continue to use the NAT service plan. If you fail to locate the cause of the conversion failure, submit a ticket. When you submit a ticket, you must provide the following information:
    • Your account ID (UID).
    • The request ID generated by Alibaba Cloud when you call the ConvertBandwidthPackage operation.
    • The ID of the NAT service plan that failed to be converted.
    • The screenshot of the conversion failure.

Prerequisites

Before you convert a NAT service plan, make sure that the following requirements are met:

  • The permissions to convert NAT service plans are acquired by your account.
    We recommend that you use an Alibaba Cloud account to convert NAT service plans. If you convert the NAT service plan as a Resource Access Management (RAM) user, you must use your Alibaba Cloud account to attach the following permission policies to your RAM user in the RAM console.
    • AliyunNATGatewayFullAccess
    • AliyunEIPFullAccess
    • AliyunCommonBandwidthPackageFullAccessAuthorize
  • Idle EIPs are sufficient within your account.
    After the NAT service plan is converted to an EIP bandwidth plan, the public IP addresses in the NAT service plan are converted to EIPs. Make sure that the number of EIPs is greater than or equal to the number of public IP addresses in the NAT service plan. In the Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) console, you can view the number of EIPs on the Quota Management page. If the number of EIPs is insufficient, you can apply for more EIPs in the VPC console. Quota Management
  • Your account is in the whitelist if the NAT service plan is charged on a pay-by-data-transfer basis.

    If the NAT service plan to be converted is billed on a pay-by-data-transfer basis, submit a ticket to apply for the permissions that are required for converting the NAT service plan.

  • The information about the NAT service plan is backed up.

    Before you convert your NAT service plan, fill out the following table with the NAT service plan information. This way, you can track the conversion progress and verify the result.

    ID of the NAT service plan Region Bandwidth limit Number of public IP addresses Conversion state ID of the EIP bandwidth plan
    bwp-xxx1 China (Hangzhou) 200 Mbps 20 Successful cbwp-xxx1
    bwp-xxx2 China (Shanghai) 500 Mbps 50 Pending N/A

Procedure

After the prerequisites are met, perform the following operations to start the conversion:

  1. Call the ConvertBandwidthPackage operation to complete the conversion. For more information, see ConvertBandwidthPackage.
  2. Verify the conversion result.
    You can check the ID of the EIP bandwidth plan to verify that the conversion is successful. IDs of NAT service plans are converted based on the following rule: ${cbwpId}='c'+${bwpId}. For example, if the ID of the NAT service plan is ${bwpId}=bwp-e8caejcj, the ID of the EIP bandwidth plan is cbwp-e8caejcj.
  3. After the NAT service plan is converted, go to the NAT Gateway tab on the Quota Management page and apply for the natgw_privilege_allow_bind_eip permission.
    The application is automatically reviewed. Wait 1 minute and click the Refresh icon. The latest status of the application appears.
    Note If you want to associate other EIPs with the NAT gateway after you apply for the natgw_privilege_allow_bind_eip permission, log off from the NAT Gateway console and log on again. Then, you can associate the EIPs with the NAT gateway. For more information, see Associate an EIP with a NAT gateway.
    Permissions that are required for associating EIPs with NAT gateways