Still using bastion hosts, VPNs, or legacy access tools to reach your cloud infrastructure?
It might be time for a fresh look at what your cloud already comes with, and why that matters more than ever.
As cloud adoption accelerates and hybrid environments scale, secure access to virtual machines (VMs) is more critical and complex than ever before. Traditional access patterns haven’t kept up. They’re not just outdated, they’re expensive, risky, and hard to scale.
The good news?
Every primary cloud provider now offers native tools that streamline secure access, no VPNs, public IPs, or jump boxes required.
Why It’s Time to Break Up with Bastion Hosts
Bastion hosts and VPNs were once the default way to access cloud VMs. But as infrastructure grows and identities multiply (both human and non-human), they’ve become a bottleneck and a liability.
Here’s why legacy access needs a rethink:
- Static keys and open ports expose sensitive systems
- Jump hosts require extra maintenance and monitoring
- VPNs create broad lateral access and user friction
- Audit gaps emerge when session activity isn’t logged or centrally managed
These methods weren’t designed for the agility and scale of cloud-native environments. And the overhead adds up, cost-wise and risk-wise.
Enter the Cloud-Native Access Toolkit
Today’s cloud platforms already provide the functionality most teams are cobbling together with third-party tools—just natively, more securely, and with far less friction.
🔐 AWS: Systems Manager Session Manager (SSM)
- Securely connect to EC2 instances without public IPs or open ports
- Access via browser or CLI with full session logging
- Identity-based control with no need for SSH keys
🔐 GCP: OS Login + IAP Tunnel
- Centralized identity and role-based access via OS Login
- Secure, tunneled connections through Identity-Aware Proxy (IAP)
- Seamless integration with Google Workspace or Cloud Identity
🔐 Azure: Azure Bastion
- RDP and SSH over secure HTTPS directly in the Azure Portal
- No public IPs or inbound ports required
- Fully managed with built-in auditing and seamless user experience
What You Gain from Going Native
📅 Cost Savings
Eliminate idle EC2 bastions, EIPs, and VPN infrastructure. No licensing, no extra VMs to manage, and reduced ops overhead.
🛡️ Stronger Security Posture
Identity-based access. No public endpoints. No shared credentials. Native tools reduce the attack surface and improve control.
📊 Full Session Visibility
Built-in logging, session auditing, and in some cases, session recording. It’s compliance-ready access, out of the box.
🌐 Operational Efficiency
No VPN clients. No, maintaining SSH keys. No bouncing between tools. Access happens where your cloud lives—fast, streamlined, and predictable.
🚀 Cloud-Scale Flexibility
Native tools scale with your infrastructure. They’re reliable, high-availability services built on your cloud provider’s backbone.
Hybrid Reality: Yes, Some Tools Work On-Prem Too
While this guide focuses on cloud-native access, it’s worth noting that several protocols, especially AWS Systems Manager Session Manager (SSM), can be extended to manage on-premise and hybrid infrastructure as well.
For example, AWS SSM supports Hybrid Activations, enabling secure, identity-based access to on-prem servers and VMs outside AWS, without requiring public IPs or inbound ports. This allows organizations to apply the same Just-in-Time, agent-based access workflows across their hybrid estate, cloud, and datacenter alike.
For further reading, you can go to this link.
Take It Further: Combine with Just-in-Time Access
While these tools are powerful on their own, they become truly transformational when paired with Just-in-Time (JIT) access:
- No standing access: Users get permissions only when needed
- Scoped, expiring sessions: Sessions self-revoke after use
- Context-aware approvals: Grant based on ticket, time, or role
- Complete auditability: Who accessed what, when, and why—always logged
Even better, JIT access becomes far more powerful when combined with:
- Access Scopes: Define precise, least-privilege boundaries for who can request what, when, and for how long. Access Scopes allow you to control access at a granular level across cloud and SaaS environments.
- Attribute-Based Access Workflows: Automate access approvals and revocations based on user roles, on-call schedules, justification, or resource criticality—reducing manual work while increasing control.
With these layered controls, you get scalable least privilege enforcement, streamlined operations, and audit-ready visibility, without sacrificing speed or productivity.
Your Cloud Comes Pre-Equipped. Use It.
Final Thoughts: Access Should Be Smart by Default
Cloud-native access is no longer an innovation. It’s a baseline best practice. If you’re still provisioning jump boxes or managing VPNs for access to instances, you’re building on patterns that don’t scale and exposing your org to unnecessary risk.
The next step: Automate it. Integrate it. Operationalize it.
At Axiom, we help teams go one level deeper, combining native access controls with policy-driven workflows, Slack-based access requests, and Just-in-Time enforcement across environments. So you get the power of cloud-native access tools, without the manual overhead.
Want to see how modern teams are simplifying secure access across cloud, SaaS, containers, and DBs?
👉 Book a demo or learn more on Axiom’s platform page.
