Securely Hosting AI Services with Alibaba Cloud VPC

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

To securely host AI services with Alibaba Cloud VPC, we need to create a Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) which will act as a separate network space within Alibaba Cloud, isolated from other users. Within this VPC, we'll launch resources such as ECS (Elastic Compute Service) instances that will run your AI services, as well as necessary networking components such as vSwitches and security groups.

Here is a brief outline of the activity:

1. **Create a VPC**: This is your private network where you can launch your cloud resources.
2. **Create a vSwitch**: This subdivision within your VPC allows you to deploy your services to a specific zone within a region.
3. **Create a Security Group**: This acts as a virtual firewall to control the traffic to instances within the VPC.
4. **Launch an ECS Instance**: Here is where your AI service will be hosted, within the secure environment of the VPC.

Below is an example of a Pulumi program using Python that sets up the necessary resources in Alibaba Cloud to achieve a VPC suitable for hosting AI services securely:

```python
import pulumi
import pulumi_alicloud as alicloud

# Step 1: Create a VPC
# This creates a new VPC with a custom CIDR block
vpc = alicloud.vpc.Network("my-ai-vpc",
                            cidr_block="10.0.0.0/16",
                            description="VPC for hosting AI services")

# Step 2: Create a vSwitch
# A vSwitch is created in a specific zone. You can create vSwitches in multiple zones for redundancy.
vswitch = alicloud.vpc.Switch("my-ai-vswitch",
                              vpc_id=vpc.id,
                              zone_id="cn-hangzhou-b",
                              cidr_block="10.0.1.0/24",
                              description="vSwitch for AI services")

# Step 3: Create a Security Group
# Defines firewall rules to only allow the traffic we specify to our AI instances.
security_group = alicloud.ecs.SecurityGroup("my-ai-sg",
                                             description="Security Group for AI ECS instances",
                                             vpc_id=vpc.id)

# Ingress rules for typical AI services might include SSH for management and an application port.
security_group_rule = alicloud.ecs.SecurityGroupRule("my-ai-sg-rule",
                                                      type="ingress",
                                                      security_group_id=security_group.id,
                                                      port_range="22/22",
                                                      protocol="TCP",
                                                      cidr_ip="0.0.0.0/0")

# Step 4: Launch an ECS Instance
# In this step we launch an ECS instance which will host the AI service
ecs_instance = alicloud.ecs.Instance("my-ai-ecs",
                                     instance_type="ecs.n2.medium",
                                     security_groups=[security_group.id],
                                     vswitch_id=vswitch.id,
                                     image_id="ubuntu_18_04_64_20G_alibase_20220316.vhd",
                                     instance_name="ai-service-instance")

# Export the ECS instance's IP to access the AI services
pulumi.export("ai_instance_public_ip", ecs_instance.public_ip)
```

In this program, we define resources using the Python SDK for Pulumi's Alibaba Cloud provider:

- **alicloud.vpc.Network**: Represents the VPC in Alibaba Cloud where your AI services can be securely hosted.
- **alicloud.vpc.Switch**: A vSwitch within the VPC that allows you to launch instances in a specific zone.
- **alicloud.ecs.SecurityGroup and SecurityGroupRule**: These work together to set up a virtual firewall for controlling access to the resources within the VPC.
- **alicloud.ecs.Instance**: This represents an ECS instance, which is a virtual server where your AI service will run.

Once run, this program will create a secure, isolated network on Alibaba Cloud for your AI services, complete with a security group that controls traffic at the instance level. The last line of the code exports the public IP of your ECS instance, which you'll use to access your AI service from outside the network.