Do I need to create the SQS in the same VPC as the ECS is in?

I have a ECS cluster inside the VPC. ECS have to read from a SQS. So, do I need to create SQS in the same VPC for that to communicate? Also, if say, I wanted to communicate outside VPC, how can I do that?

Solution

SQS queues do not belong to a specific VPC. There is no networking involved when creating/configuring a queue.

Access to SQS queues is entirely managed with IAM permissions.

With ECS, you will have to configure your task execution role properly. As an example, a policy like the following allows to send, receive and delete messages from a specific queue:

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "sqs:DeleteMessage",
                "sqs:ReceiveMessage",
                "sqs:SendMessage"
            ],
            "Resource": "arn:aws:sqs:<region>:<account>:<queue name>"
        }
    ]
}