In the exam tips on NAT Gateway, Ryan says that the NAT Gateway is automatically assigned a public IP address.
In the course lab and in my experience, the IP address on the NAT Gateway isn’t automatically assigned – when setting it up, you have to select or create an elastic IP that is attached to the NAT Gateway.
1 Answers
On the contrary, you have no control over what that IP address is going to be – because AWS automatically assigns it to the EIP. From an exam standpoint, I think Ryan’s main idea is correct – when creating a NAT Gateway, you don’t have to worry about what the Public IP will be, just know that one will be assigned as part of the configuration process.
"But what if I have extra EIP’s lying around, and I like one of those assigned Public IPs, and I decide to use the corresponding EIP when I provision my NAT Gateway? In that case, aren’t I ‘assigning’ the IP address?"
I don’t see the AWS exam production team publishing a question based on that scenario, because leaving EIPs around un-associated doesn’t follow good cost management principles as you are charged for EIPs that are not attached to a running instance.