Route Analyzer vs. Reachability Analyzer vs. Network Access Analyzer

Introduction

In network management and security, it is very important to understand how data flows within your network. Fortunately, AWS gave us three essential tools to help with this realm: Route Analyzers, Reachability Analyzers, and Network Accessibility Analyzers. Each of these tools has a unique purpose that we can use in dissecting and optimizing our network infrastructure. In this article, we will delve into the differences between these analyzers, their use cases briefly touch on other related analyzers like the IAM Access Analyzer.

Analyzers at a Glance

To start, let’s visualize the distinctions between these three analyzers with a table:

Route Analyzer

Route Analyzer is a feature in AWS Transit Gateway Network Manager that enables you to verify that a Transit Gateway route table configuration will work as expected before sending live traffic. With the Route analyzer, you can validate the existing transit gateway configuration and troubleshoot routing-related problems responsible for disruptions in your global network.

Rules for Route Analyzer

• Analyzes routes for transit gateway route tables only, not VPC route tables or customer gateway devices.

• Transit gateways need to be registered to your global network first.

• Does not analyze security group rules or network ACL rules.

• It only returns information for the return path if it can successfully return information for the forward path.

Valid Use Cases

Validating Configuration

Route Analyzer can help with validating the transit gateway route table configurations. It provides an analysis of the network paths between a specified source and destination and returns information about connectivity between components. It can validate the existing transit gateway route table configuration and even new configurations. This will allow you to be sure about your configuration before allowing live traffic in the network.

Troubleshooting

It can be difficult to troubleshoot network issues between your AWS Transit Gateways. This is why Route Analyzer was introduced; it is designed to swiftly diagnose and resolve network disruptions.

Reachability Analyzer

Reachability Analyzer can perform connectivity testing between your resources in VPCs. It gives hop-by-hop details between path or source and destination resources when reachable. It can also provide details on what component is blocking the path when the destination is not reachable.

The Reachability Analyzer gives the shortest path when there are multiple paths between source and destination. In order to use the Reachability Analyzer, the resources must be in the same VPC or on another VPC, which are connected via VPC peering or transit gateway. You can also use the Reachability Analyzer for analyzing transit gateway tables, but only at most two transit gateway route tables; if more than two, you can use Route Analyzer instead.

Valid Use Cases

• Resolve connectivity issues caused by misconfigurations.

• Ensure that your network configuration aligns with your desired connectivity.

• Automate validation of your connectivity intents as your network configuration changes.

Network Access Analyzer

Network Access Analyzer analyzes network paths between AWS resources and uses the network access scopes to produce findings from this analysis. This analyzer can help you identify unintended network access to your AWS resources and unintended network paths that do not meet your requirements.

Network Access Scopes are the requirements that you define to produce findings from the analysis.  You use MatchPaths entries to define the type of paths that you want to appear in the findings, and these are the paths that you deemed as violations of your security compliance. You use ExcludePaths to exclude legitimate network paths, and you expect to not appear in your findings.

Basically, Findings are paths that match your MatchPaths entries and do not match ExludePaths entries in your Network Access Scopes. These findings are potential paths that may compromise your security posture and are the area of our interest.

Valid Use Cases

• Enhance the security posture of your network. – The Network Access Analyzer helps you identify unauthorized network access that may not align with your security and compliance standards. This identification enables you to take corrective actions to strengthen your network security.

• Display adherence to compliance requirements. – The Network Access Analyzer helps you provide evidence that your AWS network complies with your specific compliance requirements.

Related Analyzer: IAM Access Analyzer

While not covered in depth in this article, it is worth mentioning IAM (Identity Access Management Access Analyzer). This tool focuses on assessing AWS Identity and Access Management policies to ensure they adhere to security best practices. It gives you three capabilities:

• It helps you to identify resources that are shared with an external identity, an external identity can be another AWS account, a root user, an IAM user or role, a federated user, an AWS service, or an anonymous user.

• It validates IAM policies during the creation or updating of the policies.

• It generates IAM policies based on activities from AWS CloudTrail logs.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the choice between Route Analyzer, Reachability Analyzer, and Network Access Analyzer depends on your specific network management and security needs. Each analyzer serves a unique purpose and should be integrated into your network management strategy to optimize performance, ensure connectivity, and fortify security. Additionally, tools like IAM Access Analyzer can help extend your security measures into the cloud, ensuring comprehensive protection for your digital assets.