HSM Management and Monitoring
Cut operational costs, increase uptime, and improve efficiency by managing and overseeing your HSM infrastructure from one location. Learn more about our solutions below.
What Is HSM Management?
Hardware Security Module (HSM) management involves overseeing and maintaining HSMs, devices that secure cryptographic operations. HSM hardware handles sensitive tasks such as key management and public key infrastructure (PKI) processes — both vital for data protection, digital signatures, and secure communications. Proper HSM management ensures that encryption keys are generated, stored, and used securely, helping organizations protect their most sensitive information.
Remote Management Made Easy
With the rise of cloud environments and distributed IT solutions, HSM infrastructure has become increasingly difficult to manage. Each device is often housed in a remote data center. Not only does this complicate access to critical information, it also increases costs and delays key management functions.
That’s why Entrust offers a better way to manage and monitor your nShield HSM hardware. Our efficient solutions allow you to optimize resources while increasing uptime. The result? Lower costs, fewer trips to the data center, and robust data protection through a strong root of trust.
HSM Management and Monitoring Benefits
Reduced Operational Costs
Entrust’s nShield HSM management and monitoring tools save money and reduce staff travel time by eliminating visits to data centers to manage and collect data from your HSMs.
Increased Responsiveness
HSM management tools give you instantaneous visibility and 24x7 access to your hardware security modules (HSMs) give you the information you need to act immediately on warnings and alerts.
Improve Efficiency
Plan HSM loading and capacity, maintenance, upgrades and more using historical trend data.
nShield Remote Administration
nShield HSMs often run in physically secure, lights-out data centers in locations far from the people who manage them. nShield Remote Administration lets you manage your HSMs – including adding applications, upgrading firmware, and checking status – wherever and whenever you choose. This means less travel to data centers, helping you cut costs and optimize your resources.
Benefits of Remote HSM Management
Cost Efficiency
Eliminate visits to data centers for HSM management, saving time, money, and staff downtime.
Greater Flexibility
Administer your distantly located nShield HSMs from wherever you choose, 24/7.
More Control
Upgrade firmware, check HSM status, run utilities, and more, all made possible by the remote presentation of nShield smart cards.
Tech Specs
Compatibility and Prerequisites
- nShield PCIe and network attached HSMs
- Security World Software v12.80 minimum and 12.50.11 firmware
- Remote Administration Client software is compatible with Microsoft Windows, Linux and OS X
- Customer-supplied LAN or VPN and remote access solution.
Remote Administration Kits
Remote Administration Kits contain the elements that enable Remote Administration on nShield HSMs. The kits contain one or more Trusted Verification Devices (TVDs) (secure USB-connected smart card readers), and Remote Administration Client software and a license. Kits are sized and priced by tiers based on the number of HSMs in the estate. Compatible Remote Administration Smart cards are available separately.
Square deploys Entrust nShield HSMs to fight cyber attackers on its own terms
Square uses Entrust nShield HSMs to maintain data integrity and security, meeting stringent regulatory requirements while delivering the performance they need.
nShield Monitor
nShield Monitor is a comprehensive HSM monitoring platform that enables operations teams to gain 24/7 visibility into the status of all their nShield HSMs, including those residing across distributed data centers. With this solution, security teams can efficiently inspect HSMs and find out immediately if any potential security, configuration or utilization issue may compromise their mission-critical infrastructure.
nShield Monitor Benefits
Cost Efficiency
Eliminate the costs associated with physically accessing HSMs to retrieve important data.
Utilization Optimization
Find trends in HSM performance and capacity to assist in optimizing deployment architecture.
Increased Responsiveness
Equip administrators with the timely, targeted insights they need to proactively take corrective actions.
Tech Specs
Central Monitoring Capabilities
nShield Monitor refreshes utilization statistics for all HSMs every minute. The solution generates alerts based on thresholds you define. Choose from email, SNMP, syslog, or web interface as the delivery channel for any alerts. You define specific time periods for in-depth analysis, including last hour, 24 hours, 7 days, 30 days, or custom intervals. nShield Monitor reports on a range of attributes including:
- Operational status
- Physical security and any tamper attempts
- Alarms and alerts
- Utilization and capacity
- Configuration changes with user tracking
HSM Compatibility
- nShield Edge, Solo, and Connect with Security World Software v11.72 and higher
- nShield Solo XC and Connect XC with Security World Software v12.40 and higher
Role-based Access Control
nShield supports three distinct user roles to enhance security and establish clear separation of configuration and administration duties. These three roles are:
- Administrator, manages deployment
- Group Manager, controls monitoring of HSMs and groups of HSMs
- Auditor, views data and reports
Virtual Appliance Minimum Specification
- 2 CPUs with 2 cores each
- 8 GB RAM
- Thin provisioned hard drives
- Compatible with ESXi 5.1 and later (VM Version 9)
Related Resources
nShield Solo
Certified PCI-Express cards that deliver cryptographic key services to stand-alone servers.
nShield 5c
High-performance, next-generation, and crypto-agile hardware security modules.
Verifone
Entrust nShield HSMs secure credit card transactions with end-to-end data encryption.
nShield 5s
High-performance, next-generation, crypto-agile PCI-express hardware security modules.
Memjet
Entrust nShield HSMs secure licensing and manufacturing across decentralized operations.
Explore our solutions and learn how to better control and oversee your Entrust nShield HSMs.