how to connect a RDS outside VPC securely?

Question

we want to our RDS outside VPC openly access, but it is not secure to do so.

Is there any solution to help us connect the RDS securely ?

Answer 1

You have two basic options to access an Amazon RDS database. Which you choose depends on your Risk appetite.

Option 1: RDS database in public subnet

For this option, the database is launched in a Public Subnet, with Publicly Available = Yes.

To secure the database, you would configure the Security Group to only permit inbound access from your IP address.

Option 2: RDS database in private subnet

For this option, the database is launched in a Private Subnet, with Publicly Available = No.

You will need some way to 'connect' to the VPC, and then connect to the RDS database. Options for connecting to the VPC could be:

• Create an AWS Client VPN, which allows you to connect to the VPC from any location using an OpenVPN-based VPN client, or
• Launch an Amazon EC2 instance in the public subnet and connect to it using SSH and Port Forwarding (See: How to use SSH Tunnel to connect to an RDS instance via an EC2 instance?)