Virtual Private Cloud - An isolated, private network within a public cloud provider where you control IP addressing, subnets, routing, and security. Available as AWS VPC, Azure Virtual Network (VNet), Google Cloud VPC Network, and Oracle Cloud VCN. Like having your own secure, private neighborhood within a large city.
A financial services company creates a VPC with public subnets for web servers and private subnets for databases, using security groups to control traffic between tiers.
All four provide logically isolated virtual networking in a public cloud: you define IP ranges, subnets, routes, and security controls. Names and defaults differ (e.g., AWS uses VPC + subnets per AZ; Azure uses VNet + subnets; GCP VPC networks are global with regional subnets; OCI uses VCN + subnets), but the core goal—private, controlled networking for cloud resources—is the same.