Overview of VPC sharing - Virtual Private Cloud - Alibaba Cloud Documentation Center

The Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) sharing feature allows multiple Alibaba Cloud accounts to create cloud resources, such as Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instances, Server Load Balancer (SLB) instances, and ApsaraDB RDS instances, in a shared and centrally managed VPC. Shared VPCs adopt the resource sharing mechanism. A VPC owner can share non-default vSwitches in the VPC with one or more Alibaba Cloud accounts.

Feature release and supported regions


Area	Supported region
Asia Pacific	China (Qingdao), China (Beijing), China (Zhangjiakou), China (Hohhot), China (Hangzhou), China (Shanghai), China (Shenzhen), China (Heyuan), China (Guangzhou), China (Chengdu), and China (Hong Kong)
Asia Pacific - Others	Japan (Tokyo), South Korea (Seoul), Singapore, Australia (Sydney), Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur), Indonesia (Jakarta), Philippines (Manila), Thailand (Bangkok), and India (Mumbai)
Europe & Americas	Germany (Frankfurt), UK (London), US (Silicon Valley), and US (Virginia)

Features

A VPC owner (resource owner) can share non-default vSwitches in the VPC with one or more Alibaba Cloud accounts (participants). The participants can create cloud resources in the shared vSwitches. A resource owner can share resources with Alibaba Cloud accounts in the same or different enterprise organization. For more information about resource sharing, see Resource Sharing overview.

After a VPC owner shares a vSwitch:

If the vSwitch is shared with another Alibaba Cloud account, the participant must accept the invitation to use the shared vSwitch.
If the vSwitch is shared within the same resource directory, the participant can directly use the shared vSwitch. The invitation is accepted by default.
The participant can create resources only within the shared VPC, and cannot move resources from the shared VPC to another VPC.
The participant cannot move resources from a non-shared vSwitch to the shared vSwitch.
By default, instances created by the resource owner and participant in the same VPC can communicate with each other within the VPC.

Permissions of the resource owner and participant

After a resource owner shares a vSwitch with a participant, the resource owner and participant have the following permissions on the shared vSwitch and the resources in the shared vSwitch:


Role	Supported operation	Unsupported operation
Resource owner	Create, view, modify, and delete resources that belong to the resource owner in the shared vSwitch. View the following attributes of ENIs created by the participant in the shared vSwitch: The instance IDs. The private IP addresses. The owner account of resources.	Modify or delete resources created by the participant in the shared vSwitch.
Participant	If the vSwitch is shared, the participant can create, modify, and delete cloud resources in the shared vSwitch.	If the vSwitch is shared, the participant cannot view, modify, or delete the resources created by other Alibaba Cloud accounts (resource owners and participants) in the shared vSwitch.
Participant	If the vSwitch is no longer shared, the participant can view, use, modify, and delete the resources that are created by the participant in the vSwitch.	If the vSwitch is no longer shared, the participant cannot view the resources associated with the vSwitch, such as VPCs, route tables, and network access control lists (ACLs). In addition, the participant cannot create resources in the vSwitch.

The resource owner and participant have the following permissions on other network resources:


Network resource	Resource owner	Participant
VPC	All permissions.	View the VPC to which the shared vSwitch belongs.
vSwitches	All permissions (including enabling and disabling the IPv6 feature for the shared vSwitch) Note If the resource owner wants to delete the vSwitch, the vSwitch must not be shared with the participant. In addition, the resources created by the resource owner and participant in the vSwitch must be deleted.	View the shared vSwitch. Create, modify, and delete cloud resources in the shared vSwitch.
Route tables	All permissions.	View route tables and route entries that are associated with the shared vSwitch.
Network access control lists (ACLs)	All permissions.	Associate, disassociate, and view network ACLs in a shared vSwitch.
CIDR block	View the CIDR block of the VPC and CIDR blocks of all vSwitches in the VPC.	View the private CIDR block of the shared vSwitch.
Flow logs	Create flow logs for a specified VPC or vSwitch. The system records traffic information about elastic network interfaces (ENIs) of the vSwitch that belongs to the participant. Create flow logs for a specified ENI. The system records traffic information about ENIs that belong to the resource owner.	Create flow logs for a specified ENI. The system records traffic information about ENIs that belong to the resource owner.
NAT gateways	All permissions on Internet NAT gateways and VPC NAT gateways. Note The resources created by the resource owner and participant in the vSwitch can communicate with the Internet through Internet NAT gateways. Internet NAT gateways can be associated with only the elastic IP addresses (EIPs) that belong to the resource owner.	No permission.
VPN gateways	All permissions. Note The resources created by the resource owner and participant in the vSwitch can communicate with external networks through VPN gateways.	No permission.
Cloud Enterprise Network (CEN) instances	All permissions. Note The resources created by the resource owner and participant in the vSwitch can communicate with external networks through CEN instances.	No permission.
VPC peering connections	All permissions. Note The resources created by the resource owner and participant in the vSwitch can communicate with external networks through VPC peering connections.	No permission.
Tags	Resource sharing does not affect the tags added to resources by the resource owner. When the vSwitch is shared, the resource owner and resource user can add tags to their own resources. The resource user cannot view the tags added by the resource owner and the resource owner cannot view the tags added by the resource user. The tags added by the resource owner and resource user do not affect each other. When the vSwitch is not shared, the system deletes the tags added by the participant in the vSwitch.

Billing

In a shared VPC, participants pay for the instances that they create, such as ECS, SLB, and ApsaraDB RDS instances. However, fees of public bandwidth and gateway resources such as Internet NAT gateways and VPN gateways are paid by the resource owner. For more information about the billing of cloud resources, see relevant topics.

Limits and quotas


Item	Limit	Adjustable
Maximum number of principals supported by each VPC	50	You can request a quota increase by using one of the following methods: Go to the Quota Management page to request a quota increase. For more information, see Manage VPC quotas. Log on to the Quota Center page to request a quota increase. For more information, see Submit an application to increase a quota.
Maximum number of principals supported by each vSwitch in a VPC	50
Maximum number of vSwitches that can be shared with each principal	30
Maximum number of IP addresses that each VPC can use	Maximum number of IP addresses that the resource owner and principals can use in each VPC	No
Types of cloud resources that can be created in a shared vSwitch	ECS instance SLB instance ApsaraDB RDS instance Terway component ApsaraDB for MongoDB instance ApsaraDB for Redis instance Message Queue for Apache Kafka instance Elasticsearch Container Registry instance PolarDB for MySQL cluster	N/A
Limits on security groups in a shared VPC	A resource principal cannot create resources in security groups that belong to other resource principals or the resource owner. The security groups include the default security group. The resource owner cannot create resources in security groups that belong to resource principals.
Types of vSwitches that can be shared	Non-default vSwitches

Note Shared VPCs also follow the usage and quota limits of standard VPCs. The quota limits on a shared VPC are not affected by the number of participants.

Enable VPC sharing

For more information, see Enable VPC sharing.