As technologies continue to evolve certificates issued by both private and public certificate authorities will be used more and more. At some point you will have to determine a method for tracking these certificates as they will become very important to your business. Expired certificates and can cause downtime and lost revenue while compromised certificate keys can cause compliance issues as well as lost public trust in your business. Have a good process to track and manage these certificates is going to be crucial to your business. In this article we will talk about the differences between a manual solution vs an automated solution like CertMS.
Lets first take a look at the Manual process.
A manual process for certificate track has many steps needed to be perform consistently by one or many people. We will go over a manual process for certificate management in a later article but for now here is a quick summary of what is needed.
- Certificate Issuance
- Once a certificate is issued and administrator will need to approve it and document all information about the certificate
- Certificate Tracking
- Once a certificate is issued, based on the certificate template, it may be used on multiple web servers if they are load balanced. The administrator has to be very diligent to make sure every server where the certificate lives is documented so that it can be replaced later.
- Certificate Renewal
- Certificates at some point will need to be renewed and as the expiration of certificates gets shorter and shorter the administrator will need to be very diligent about renewing the certificates and getting them on the appropriate servers
- Certificate Reissuance
- When a cert if compromised or becomes corrupted it my be necessary to have the certificate reissued. The administrator will need to reissue the certificate, revoke the old certificate and make sure to document all information about the new certificate. Previous documentation will help the administrator know which servers the reissued certificate needs to be on.
- Certificate Expiration
- While this goes with certificate renewal it if very important that the administrator tracks all certificates closely to know when they are going to expire. Expired certificates can cause downtime and lost revenue if not handled in a timely manner.
As you can see this is a lot of work for a single person and may even require an entire team or multiple teams. Now that we know what it kind of takes for the manual approach let’s look at the pros and cons of a manual process vs an automated process like CertMS.
Manual Process
Pros:
- Low to no actual seen cost for any specialized software
- Simple to implement and maintain
- Can be customized to fit very specific organizational needs
- No dependencies on external systems or vendors
Cons:
- Very time-consuming and labor-intensive
- Prone to human error (e.g. misfiling, incorrect data entry)
- Limited Scalability (may not be able to handle large volumes of certificates)
- May require frequent updates and maintenance
- For larger organizations could require an entire person or team to implement
Automated Solution
Pros:
- Scalable and can handle large volumes of certificates
- Reduces manual error and increases accuracy
- Automates routine tasks
- Certificate expiration alerting
- Certificate pending alerting
- Certificate issued alerting
- Provides real time reporting on certificates
- Integrates with common Certificate Authorities
- Monitors servers for Certificates added to them
Cons:
- Requires upfront investment in software licensing and implementation
- May require ongoing subscription fees or support fees
- Can be complex to setup and configure
- May require additional IT resources to manage the system
When to choose an Automated Solution
- Large Scale Certificate Management: If your organization works with a large number of certificates regularly (100+ per year) and automated solution like CertMS may be necessary.
- Production Web Servers: If your organization uses web servers for business or run an ecommerce website having an automated solution can save you from critical downtime and lost revenue.
- Compliance and Regulatory Requirements: If your organization has to meet certain compliance or regulatory requirements (like PCI-DSS, or HIPPA) and automated solution can help you with that.
When do choose a Manual Solution
- Small-Scale certificate management: If your organization issues or works with less than 100 certificates a year, a manual process may be sufficient and more cost-effective
- Simple Certificate Profiles: If you have simple certificate profiles with minimal automation required, a manual process might be sufficient.
Conclusion
Ultimately, the choice between a manual solution or an automated solution (like CertMS) is one you have to make based on your experience and organization. If you would like a free 30 day trial of CertMS to see how it can help your organization check out https://certms.com/try-out-certms/.