A cloud-native proxy gateway is reachable from a central server and from an isolated cloud VM. A method allows legacy (non-cloud native) solutions to establish a secure connection to the isolated cloud VM, even when incoming port flows are not enabled. The method involves transforming a TCP/IP network connection request into a cloud API call, ignoring IP addresses, and instead using a unique cloud resource identifier as the primary network routing methodology. In response to a communication connection request by the central server, the isolated VM establishes a reverse tunnel to the cloud-native proxy gateway. Communication flow initiated by the central server proceeds through the reverse tunnel to the isolated VM, avoiding an issue of duplicate IP addresses in the cloud.