AWS has announced the general availability of Amazon VPC Route Server on April 1, 2025. This new feature significantly simplifies dynamic routing between virtual appliances within an Amazon VPC by introducing a managed Border Gateway Protocol (BGP)-based route propagation solution.
What Is Amazon VPC Route Server?
Amazon VPC Route Server is a new capability that allows you to advertise and receive routing information using BGP between your virtual appliances and the VPC route tables. Instead of relying on overlay networks, custom scripts, or virtual routers to keep your route tables updated, you now have a native AWS service that handles this dynamically and securely.
Key Benefits
Managed BGP Routing
You can now deploy Route Server endpoints inside your VPC and peer them directly with your virtual appliances using BGP. This allows appliances to dynamically advertise or withdraw routes, which are then automatically updated in the associated route tables.
Simplified Failover and High Availability
One of the most compelling use cases is high availability for virtual appliances (e.g., firewalls, SD-WAN hubs, NAT gateways). When a device fails or is replaced, the BGP session withdraws the route, prompting the Route Server to remove the affected path from your route table. This automatic propagation of route changes helps reduce downtime and operational overhead.
No More Overlay Networks
Previously, you might have relied on overlay network setups or scripting solutions to achieve dynamic routing. VPC Route Server eliminates the need for:
- Custom Lambda scripts for route updates
- Overlay routers like BIRD or FRRouting
- Complex automation pipelines for route table manipulation
Supported Regions
As of launch, VPC Route Server is available in the following AWS Regions:
- US East (N. Virginia)
- US East (Ohio)
- US West (Oregon)
- Europe (Ireland)
- Europe (Frankfurt)
- Asia Pacific (Tokyo)
Ideal Use Cases
- High availability pairs of virtual firewalls
- Dynamic SD-WAN connectivity
- Route propagation from third-party virtual appliances
- Seamless integration for transit VPCs
Getting Started
You can get started by navigating to the VPC Console, creating a Route Server endpoint, and establishing BGP peering with your appliances. You’ll also need to specify which route tables should receive the BGP routes.
For full documentation, refer to the AWS official documentation.
Final Thoughts
The launch of Amazon VPC Route Server addresses a long-standing gap in AWS networking. By offering native support for BGP-based dynamic routing, it simplifies architectures and boosts resiliency for customers building complex, hybrid, and cloud-native environments.