Cloud Firewall
ELI5 — The Vibe Check
A cloud firewall is a virtual bouncer that controls what traffic can enter and leave your cloud resources. Allow HTTPS from anywhere but SSH only from the office IP? That's a cloud firewall rule. It's like setting up velvet ropes around your servers — only approved traffic gets in.
Real Talk
Cloud firewalls are virtual network security controls that filter traffic to and from cloud resources. They operate at different levels: security groups (instance-level), network ACLs (subnet-level), and web application firewalls (application-level). Rules define allowed/denied traffic based on IP, port, protocol, and direction (ingress/egress).
When You'll Hear This
"The cloud firewall only allows port 443 from the internet." / "Update the firewall rules to allow the new office IP for SSH access."
Related Terms
Firewall
A firewall is the bouncer at your network's door. It checks every incoming and outgoing connection against a list of rules and blocks anything suspicious.
Network Policy
Network policies in Kubernetes are like firewall rules for pods.
Security Group
A security group is a firewall for your cloud resources. You write rules like 'allow port 443 from anywhere' or 'allow port 5432 only from the app servers.
VPC (Virtual Private Cloud)
A VPC is your own private section of the AWS cloud — like a gated neighborhood where your servers live.
WAF (WAF)
WAF stands for Web Application Firewall.