There was a time when certificate management was fairly low on the list of demands on an IT administrator's resources. Most organizations had few services like external websites that were required to be internet facing, and security best practices considered encrypted connections essential only for financial and e-commerce websites. Moreover, web browsers didn't require the use of encrypted connections that necessitate the use of SSL/TLS certificates.
In today's IT environment, digital certificates are everywhere. Certificate management can be complex and potentially time consuming without the right tools. Centralizing certificate management to ServiceNow is one way you can streamline certificate life cycle management in a more complex encrypted world.
The IT environment has become more complex for a variety of reasons:
- All internet-facing services accessed by web browsers require the use of encryption and SSL/TLS certificates because the dominant browser platforms mandate the use of secure connections to web servers.
- Internal certificates are used more often because enhanced IT security standards require their use to ensure encrypted connections and mutual authentication.
- Certificate lifetimes have shortened due to changes in CA/Browser Forum guidelines requiring more frequent issuance and deployment.
- Increased use of cloud-based IT infrastructure and the adoption of DevOps practices have created the need for on-demand issuance and deployment of certificates.
IT administrators are looking for help reducing the workload associated with their growing certificate populations.
Entrust Datacard offers three complimentary approaches to reduce the burden on IT administrators:
- Automate certificate deployment to the devices and services that use certificates
- Enable self-service tools for end users to request and download certificates
- Employ certificate monitoring and compliance tools to ensure that end users replace their certificates prior to expiry and escalate appropriately when a potential outage is possible
All of these approaches require seamless integration of the certificate issuing infrastructure with the cloud platforms and automation tools that IT administrators rely on. Entrust Datacard is making several of these integrations available to our customers, including our recently launched integration application for ServiceNow customers. Our Open API-based REST API also allows customers to easily build custom integration logic, if desired.
Certificate management continues to be an area IT administrators are looking to simplify. Entrust Datacard is committed to making the tools needed to effectively automate and delegate certificate management tasks available to our customers.
Watch our recorded webinar to see a demo of this solution where I show you how to maintain compliance, gain visibility and simplify the request to renewal process for SSL/TLS in ServiceNow.
