Introduction to Google Cloud Network NAT: Learn how to create a GCP Virtual Private Cloud

Cloud technology has made it a priority to secure the network and IP address. Google cloud introduced Cloud NAT (network adres translation) to address this issue. This allows resources to establish outbound connections to the internet without using external IP addresses.
But how does this help with connectivity? We will be covering all aspects of Cloud NAT in order to provide a better understanding of how and why this service is so beneficial.
What is Google Cloud NAT?
Cloud NAT is a GCP-managed high-performance Network Address Translation. This allows you to deploy your applications instances without public IP addresses, while simultaneously allowing them access the internet in a controlled, efficient manner for updates, patching and other tasks. Outside resources cannot access the private instances behind Cloud NAT gateway. This ensures that your Google Cloud VPCs are safe and secure.
Cloud NAT also provides outgoing connectivity for the following resources:
First, Compute Engine virtual machines (VMs), without external IP addresses.
Secondly, Private Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) clusters.
Thirdly, Cloud Run instances can be accessed via Serverless VPC Access.
Using Serverless VPC Access, then you can access Cloud Functions instances.
Lastly, you can access App Engine standard environments via Serverless VPC Access.
Cloud NAT Benefits:
Cloud NAT’s non-chokepoint design is a great solution for reliability, performance and scalability. It also has no managed middle proxy.
Cloud NAT service also works with Compute Engine and Google Kubernetes Engine, as we want Google Cloud (GKE) to be the cloud of preference for all workloads.
A third advantage is that a single Cloud NAT gateway can handle multiple NAT IP addresses and scales, depending on your network size. This makes it ideal for highly scalable applications deployments.
Cloud NAT is also designed to be reliable. Cloud NAT is able to continue operating in an area even if a particular zone goes down.
Finally, you can choose your own NAT IP address depending on your needs. Manual mode allows you to choose the IPs that you want, while auto mode automatically allocates and scales the NAT IPs according to the number of instances.
Google Cloud NAT Architecture
Cloud NAT is a software-defined distributed managed service. It doesn’t use proxy virtual machines or appliances. It configures the Andromeda software to run your VPC network. This allows you to enable source network address translation (source NAT, or SNAT) for VMs without external IP addresses. Cloud NAT also supports destination network address translation (DNAT) for established inbound responses.
Image Source: GCPFurther outbound NAT can also be deployed in your VPC network by using Cloud NAT in conjunction static routes and default internet gateways. This criterion is met if your VPC network has a default route. Cloud NAT does NOT support inbound connections from the Internet. Only packets that are received as a response to outbound messages are subject to DNAT.
What are the features offered by Google Cloud NAT?
The most important features of Google Cloud NAT include:
1. Service NAT controlled
Network Address Translation can be a great option for you, even if you don’t have to deploy or maintain your own NAT Gateways.
2. Flexible
Cloud NAT supports Compute Engine virtual machines, (VMs), and Google Kubernetes Engine containers.
3. Multiple NAT IPs per gateway
Google Cloud NAT allows you to configure multiple NAT IP addresses per NAT Gateway.
4. Timeout timers
It has NAT timeout times that can be custoed