For some time now, there has been a wide discussion in the AWS community regarding implementing fees for Public IP Addresses. It surprised few as many people knew that it was imminent as a recent statement from AWS clarified that fees are applicable for public IP addresses. Starting from February 1, 2024, AWS will begin charging for public IPv4 addresses at a rate of $0.005 per Public IP per hour. It’s important to note that these charges will apply to all Public IP addresses (Static/Dynamic), irrespective of whether they are attached to any services or not.
Why only IPv4 addresses are chargeable?
Internet protocol version four (IPv4) was designed by ARPA in 1981 and has about 4.3 billion addresses to use. At the time of its development, this quantity of identifiers was deemed more than adequate.
As the system grew, the central authority on the IP addresses became the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).
The phrase “IPv4 exhaustion” refers to the moment when the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) depleted its pool of available IPv4 addresses. We can clearly identify one of the most obvious factors that contribute to currently high IPv4 prices, they are in unprecedentedly low supply. The cost to acquire a single public IPv4 address has risen more than 300% over the past 5 years.
Which AWS services are affected by this decision?
The new pricing adjustments will affect all AWS Services, such as EC2, RDS, EKS, and others, that are capable of being allocated and attached to a public IPv4 address across all AWS regions.
Quick Summary:
Cost implications:
Example: If an organization is having a web application that uses 20 Public IPv4 addresses.
Then,
Monthly Charges, 20 IPs x 730 Hrs x $0.005/IP/Hrs = $73
Yearly Charges, 20IPs x 8760 Hrs x $0.005/IP/Hrs = $876
Important Points:
The AWS Free Tier for EC2 will include 750 Hours of public IPv4 address usage per month for the first 12 months.
You will not be charged for IP addresses that you own and bring to AWS using Amazon BYOIP.
How to avoid this cost?
According to the statement, the newly introduced charges are specifically applicable only to public IPv4 addresses. There is no mention of any charges for IPv6 addresses. Therefore, we can confidently assume that IPv6 addresses will remain free of charge. This presents an opportunity for us to transition our application network usage from IPv4 to IPv6, which could potentially help us avoid the associated costs while benefiting from the advantages of IPv6 in terms of improved scalability and address availability.
Use Elastic Load Balancers and NAT Gateways for ingress and egress traffic, while avoiding using a public IPv4 address for each instance you launch.
Why is IPv6 preferable?
IPv6 is the next generation of IP addresses. The main difference between IPv4 and IPv6 is the address size of IP addresses. IPv4 is a 32-bit address, whereas IPv6 is a 128-bit hexadecimal address.
IPv6 has numerous benefits over its predecessor and should be the first choice for almost all organizations. Its better performance, effectiveness, and efficiency make it a better version than any before.
IPv6 provides a large address space, and it contains a simple header as compared to IPv4.
Some evidence suggests that IPv6 is faster than IPv4.
IPv6 includes encryption and authentication.
AWS Services to monitor IPs and their costs?
In order to make it easier for you to monitor, analyze, and audit your use of public IPv4 addresses, AWS has launched Public IP Insights, a new feature of
Amazon VPC IP Address Manager
that is available to you at no cost.
AWS Cost and Usage Reports
automatically include public IPv4 address usage. When new charges come into effect you can also use
AWS Cloud Cost Explorer
to see and understand usage.
Conclusion: In summary, the transition of our application network usage from IPv4 to IPv6 offers a strategic advantage to avoid the newly introduced charges for IPv4 addresses. By incorporating a load balancer and embracing IPv6, we can significantly decrease our dependence on Public IPv4 addresses, leading to cost savings. Effectively managing and monitoring public IPv4 IP addresses using tools like VIAM, Cost and Usage reports, and AWS Cost Explorer will empower us to optimize resource allocation and budgeting.
