# Connectivity The driver starts with one or more contact points, discovers the cluster topology, and opens connections to the nodes it needs. The application network must provide a usable path to every discovered node that the load-balancing configuration may use, either directly or through Client Routes. See [Getting Started](https://python-driver.docs.scylladb.com/master/getting-started.md) for basic contact-point and session setup. Authentication and TLS configuration are covered in [Security](https://python-driver.docs.scylladb.com/master/security.md). For ScyllaDB Cloud, see [ScyllaDB Cloud](https://python-driver.docs.scylladb.com/master/scylla-cloud.md). Choose the connection model that matches the network: | Model | Use when | Driver configuration | |---------------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | Direct connectivity | The application can route to every node address advertised by the
cluster, including through VPC peering or another routed private network. | Regular [`Cluster`](https://python-driver.docs.scylladb.com/master/api/cassandra/cluster.md#cassandra.cluster.Cluster) contact points. | | Client Routes | Nodes are reached through per-node proxy endpoints and their advertised
addresses are not directly reachable. | [`ClientRoutesConfig`](https://python-driver.docs.scylladb.com/master/api/cassandra/client-routes.md#cassandra.client_routes.ClientRoutesConfig). | ## Contents [Direct Connectivity (VPC Peering)](https://python-driver.docs.scylladb.com/master/connectivity/direct-connectivity.md) : Connect directly to every cluster node through VPC peering or another routed network. [Client Routes (Private Networking)](https://python-driver.docs.scylladb.com/master/connectivity/client-routes.md) : Connect through AWS PrivateLink, GCP Private Service Connect, or a similar per-node proxy setup.