Cloud-native certificate lifecycle management: exploring the benefits & capabilities
Cloud-native certificate lifecycle management (CLM) revolutionizes digital certificate handling by automating issuance, renewal, and revocation. Unlike traditional on-premise methods, cloud-native platforms enhance security, scalability, and efficiency while reducing costs. They leverage automation, containerization, and APIs for seamless integration and real-time monitoring. With advanced cryptographic readiness and reduced downtime, cloud-native CLM ensures future-proof PKI management. Sectigo Certificate Manager (SCM) exemplifies these benefits, delivering flexible, CA-agnostic solutions for enterprises.
Certificate lifecycle management (CLM) provides a systematic approach to issuing, deploying, and renewing digital certificates, enabling organizations to maximize the encryption and authentication capabilities of digital certificates. While CLM is invaluable, many organizations face challenges stemming from inefficiencies and rising costs associated with outdated processes, like reliance on spreadsheets.
Traditionally, enterprises largely relied on manual processes, leveraging on-premise hardware and experienced IT professionals to handle all aspects of the certificate lifecycle. However, the rise of cloud-native CLM platforms has revolutionized this process, offering increased flexibility, scalability, and cost-effectiveness. These platforms not only streamline operations but also future-proof organizations against evolving security threats by providing advanced automation and comprehensive visibility. As a leader in this space, Sectigo's cloud-native CLM platform, Sectigo Certificate Manager (SCM), delivers secure, efficient, and scalable solutions, positioning enterprises to meet the digital challenges of tomorrow with confidence.
What is a cloud-native CLM platform?
A cloud-native CLM platform operates entirely within modern cloud computing environments, characterized by scalability, flexibility, and resilience. Unlike on-premises arrangements, where hardware and software are managed onsite by internal IT teams, cloud-native platforms centralize all certificate processes—discovery, issuance, deployment, revocation, and renewal—through cloud computing. This eliminates the need for physical infrastructure and reduces the overhead of hardware and software maintenance.
Key features of cloud-native architecture include containerization, which allows CLM components to be deployed in portable, lightweight containers, enhancing scalability and deployment speed. Cloud-native platforms also leverage APIs, particularly RESTful APIs, to facilitate seamless integration with existing systems and enable the automation of complex workflows. Together, these capabilities make cloud-native CLM a powerful solution for modern PKI management.
Benefits of a cloud-native CLM platform
Cloud-native strategies promise a wide range of advantages compared to traditional on-premise solutions. These are often implemented in response to expired certificates, staffing concerns, or security issues — but enterprises that leverage these solutions proactively can unlock a whole host of advantages. Top benefits include:
Bolstered security
Offering proactive risk mitigation, cloud-native solutions enable the continuous monitoring of certificate status, thereby making it easier to detect potential issues and even to stage rapid responses to security incidents. Unfortunately, many organizations with on-premise solutions have suffered high-profile breaches, going against the previous assumption that proximity and security went hand-in-hand. With cloud solutions, these issues can be combated through robust security controls, rigorous audits, and even a reduced attack surface.
The value of complete visibility cannot be overlooked, as this makes it possible to identify concerning trends or anomalies that might otherwise be missed. Through increased visibility, enterprises using cloud-native platforms can promptly discover vulnerabilities such as weak encryption algorithms and misconfigured certificates. Cloud-native CLM also enhances security through comprehensive discovery services, which ensures that certificates are known and can therefore be properly managed.
Cryptographic readiness also has a powerful role to play, with cloud-based updates leveraged to help integrate cutting-edge technologies such as post-quantum cryptography. Ultimately, this can boost crypto agility, which describes how easily organizations can adapt to evolving cryptography challenges and opportunities. This can bolster long-term cybersecurity, even as quantum computing and other major developments enter the picture.
Operational efficiency
On-premise hardware limitations can prompt significant delays, especially compared to streamlined cloud-native workflows. Onsite maintenance activities, for example, can disrupt operations, and, while software updates or hardware upgrades may be important — and may even be carefully planned — some downtime is often to be expected.
In contrast, cloud-native solutions streamline workflows by eliminating the need for on-site maintenance and automating lifecycle tasks. These platforms support dynamic updates, allowing enterprises to manage certificates in real time without delays. By handling high-volume certificate requests efficiently, they reduce errors and eliminate the need for manual intervention, ensuring smoother operations.
A cloud-native infrastructure also offloads time-consuming tasks like manual certificate renewals, enabling IT teams to focus on strategic initiatives. Solutions like Sectigo Certificate Manager further enhance efficiency by natively integrating with DevOps pipelines, cloud platforms, and hybrid IT environments, allowing organizations to manage certificates seamlessly across diverse infrastructures without additional hardware or software investments.
Scalability
On-premises certificate lifecycle management solutions suffer from limited scalability, prompted not only by hardware limitations, but also, by ongoing staffing concerns. This can present huge problems when organizations see a sudden influx in their certificate needs. As certificate volumes increase, enterprises may struggle to keep up, making them more vulnerable to expirations, outages, and a whole host of other issues.
Moving forward, scalability will become more important as certificate lifespans are expected to shrink — with validity periods potentially extending just 90 or even 47 days (compared to the current 398-day lifespan), renewal processes will take place much more frequently.
In addition to seamlessly handling fluctuations in certificate volumes, cloud-native solutions can easily adapt based on evolving cryptographic standards — including post-quantum cryptography which, alongside shorter lifespans, promises to shake up certificate management as we know it.
Cost optimization
On-premises solutions can be quite expensive, with hardware, software, and staffing all contributing to costly processes that, unfortunately, may prompt a poor return on investment. In addition to these considerable upfront and ongoing expenses, on-premises solutions can deliver higher costs in the form of outages, with downtime potentially costing between $5,600 and $9,000 per minute.
How cloud-native platforms improve CLM capabilities
Cloud-native platforms promise to enhance the always-important processes that surround certificate lifecycle management. Upon adopting a cloud-oriented approach, organizations can expect to enhance these crucial capabilities:
High availability and reliability
Ideal for minimizing disruptions and therefore, maximizing uptime, cloud-native platforms provide access to a robust and scalable infrastructure, complete with features purposefully designed to improve availability. This references the ability to consistently and reliably access the CLM platform and make the most of its services.
High availability is closely linked to platform reliability, which supports continuous security operations. Real-time monitoring plays a critical role, enabling CLM platforms to detect and address potential issues proactively, ensuring uninterrupted performance and robust security.
Faster deployment and updates
On-premises solutions can be time-consuming to deploy, as this process calls for hardware procurement, onsite installation, and integration with complex internal systems. Cloud-native CLMs, however, can be quickly deployed, with robust, out-of-the-box integrations promising to streamline the onboarding process. This allows organizations to quickly implement and leverage CLM solutions.
This enhanced efficiency extends to updates, which, with cloud-native solutions, can be rolled out instantly. These updates help organizations enhance compliance, even while navigating rapidly evolving standards.
Reduced total cost of ownership
Every CLM method requires some level of investment. The long-term ROI can be considerable, but cloud-native strategies go a step beyond to offset initial costs while also helping organizations score the long-term rewards of effective certificate management.
Early on, the most significant savings may center around the ability to bypass expensive hardware or software, but further savings can be expected alongside dramatic reductions in outages. Downtime expenses add up quickly; estimates from Forrester Research suggest that enterprises can easily suffer one outage or more every month — and that, depending on the organization, the cost of a single outage could easily reach $100,000.
Leverage the power of the cloud with Sectigo Certificate Manager
Looking for a reliable, cost-effective, and cloud-native approach to certificate lifecycle management? Look to Sectigo Certificate Manager to streamline core digital certificate processes: certificate issuance, provisioning, revocation, renewal, and beyond.
As a cloud-native and CA-agnostic solution, SCM promises seamless integration and maximum flexibility, enabling organizations to manage certificates from multiple Certificate Authorities effortlessly. From an intuitive dashboard to out-of-the-box integrations, SCM offers many advantages that make it clear: cloud-native CLM is far preferable to the on-premises solutions of yesteryear.