The ROI of moving certificate management in-house with internal CAs
Managing certificates in-house using private CAs offers enterprises greater security, compliance, and long-term cost savings. With the shift toward shorter certificate lifespans and rising complexity in modern IT environments, public CAs often fall short. Private CAs empower businesses with agility, automation, and control while supporting post-quantum cryptography and hybrid infrastructure needs. Tools like Sectigo streamline the transition and amplify ROI through flexible deployment and centralized management.
Table of Contents
- Why more organizations are rethinking public CA use
- The case for internal CAs and private PKI
- The ROI of moving certificate management in-house
- Additional benefit: lower long-term costs
- Why augmenting or replacing Microsoft AD CS is often the smarter move
- How Sectigo enables modern internal CA deployment
- Realize the ROI of in-house PKI with Sectigo
Certificate management can be approached in a variety of ways, ranging from the convenience of public certificate authorities to the enhanced control of internal, private solutions with both manual and automated workflows available to suit diverse operational needs.
All certificate management strategies share a similar goal: leveraging the power of encryption and authentication while ensuring that digital certificates are properly issued, renewed, and monitored. Some setups, however, are more effective in reaching these desired ends, and some are better poised to accomplish these essentials while also improving compliance and even preparing enterprises for the elevated security risks of tomorrow.
This is where the ongoing debate between public and private certificate authorities may come into play. Both resources have their advantages, but neither approach is ideal in every situation. Increasingly, however, enterprises favor the agility and scalability of private certificate authorities, as we will discuss below:
Why more organizations are rethinking public CA use
In today's high-risk digital ecosystem, the need for strong certificate management is clear. This forms the foundation for secure communications and trust across networks, but there's much to consider: which types of certificate authorities to use and how to discover, issue, deploy, and manage a growing volume of digital certificates. As certificate volumes rise and certificate lifespans shrink, with a 47-day maximum validity period expected by 2029, legacy public-CA workflows, often manual and fragmented, come under pressure to maintain continuous trust and avoid outages at scale.
Public certificate authorities (CAs) can be helpful, offering a straightforward approach to obtaining SSL/TLS certificates, and ultimately, leveraging the benefits of authentication and encryption. These CAs have long been a trusted solution for small businesses and certain public-facing websites, offering the advantages of trust and simplified management.
The only problem? Because these are so tightly bound to browser-trusted rules, public CAs could potentially fall short when internal needs take precedence. Simply put, they are not meant for granular internal authentication or policy customization. They also aren’t well-suited for modern IT ecosystems that include cloud infrastructure, BYOD setups, IoT devices, and non-Windows environments, all of which demand greater certificate agility. Their rigidity can also prove problematic when renewals or revocations come into play; strict policies can increase the potential for compliance failures or even outages.
Moving forward, this shift towards in-house solutions may be accelerated by the transition to 47-day certificate lifespans, which will spark higher demand for expedited certificate issuance and renewal processes. In response to this transition, enterprises may be more likely to seek out flexible deployment solutions such as private CAs.
The case for internal CAs and private PKI
Private CAs operate within tightly controlled, fully internal environments, issuing digital certificates for various applications and virtual private networks (VPNs) while also facilitating user authentication and securing application programming interfaces (APIs). Although not trusted by public default within public browsers, these CAs have their own mechanisms for establishing trust: private root certificates, capable of issuing end-entry certificates regarded as valid within internal networks.
These private CAs hold diverse use cases but are frequently used at the enterprise level to facilitate secure and scalable solutions. Common uses of private CAs include:
Financial Services: Issuing certificates for internal systems that handle sensitive transactions, securing API traffic between banking microservices using mTLS, and enforcing strict identity policies for employees and third-party vendors.
Healthcare: Enabling HIPAA-compliant authentication between medical devices, EMR systems, and internal applications, especially in environments with strict data privacy requirements.
Technology & SaaS: Managing certificates at scale for cloud workloads, Kubernetes clusters, and DevOps pipelines, including ephemeral containers and virtual machines that require short-lived certificates.
Manufacturing & Industrial IoT: Providing identity and secure communication for operational technology (OT) systems, such as PLCs and smart sensors on factory floors, where public CAs aren’t viable.
Government & Defense: Supporting air-gapped networks and classified systems with strict lifecycle control, policy customization, and local trust hierarchies.
Retail & E-commerce: Authenticating POS devices, securing in-store IoT, and managing internal certificates across distributed branch locations.
The ROI of moving certificate management in-house
In-house certificate lifecycle management offers many advantages, including tighter control over internal security and compliance, but for many organizations, top sources of motivation involve the potential for long-term savings. This quickly offsets any initial investment, all while supporting both customization and peace of mind.
Stronger operational control
Offering enhanced control over certificate policies and issuance processes, internal CAs make it possible to tailor certificate strategies to reflect specific security compliance needs. This includes full authority over issuance parameters, renewal intervals, and custom policies, all aligned with internal security architecture rather than browser-driven rules.
This strengthened control can hold significant implications for overall continuity, ensuring that systems and data remain secure even as staffing changes occur within IT teams and across other departments.
Improved agility and automation
While not all internal CAs support automation out of the box, modern private CAs increasingly enable automated workflows, often through protocols like ACME (Automatic Certificate Management Environment) to streamline certificate issuance, renewal, and revocation. This eliminates the need for manual tasks, and, while the associated improvements can be impressive, it’s also notable from an agility perspective; this allows enterprises to scale security within fast-paced DevOps environments.
Instead of relying on browser-driven rules, enterprises with in-house certificate management can align certificate practices with internal security architecture, ultimately improving agility by customizing trust hierarchies and validation methods to reflect industry-specific concerns or organizational priorities.
This agility even encompasses short-lived certificate models, such as certificates used within containerized environments, which may have extremely brief validity periods spanning a mere two hours.
Improved compliance and visibility
Compliance should be top of mind when planning certificate management strategies. This is crucial not only for preventing fines or other regulatory consequences, but also, because it promotes transparency and business continuity which are key elements for reducing overall risk while enhancing security posture.
In-house certificate management can enhance compliance with a range of frameworks and regulations, including everything from PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) to HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act). Centralized logging and audit trails support compliance by providing detailed records of certificate issuance, renewals, and general usage. This clearly demonstrates adherence to strict regulatory requirements.
Better support for post-quantum transition
Today's certificate management strategies must take the upcoming disruptions of the post-quantum era into account. As quantum computing takes over, there will be an even greater need for crypto agility, including the ability to swiftly adapt cryptographic algorithms without sparking operational disruptions.
Internal CAs promise improved support through every step of this necessary transition, offering the chance to test and deploy post-quantum algorithms and gradually integrate them into existing IT infrastructure. Legacy lock-in, however, could hamper organizations as they strive to adapt to the realities of PQC.
Additional benefit: lower long-term costs
With private CAs, bulk issuance can provide impressive savings compared to public certificate issuance costs, although reduced costs may also accompany limited licensing fees or other recurring fees. Private CAs also help eliminate the need to rely on external vendors for every certificate lifecycle event, offering enterprises greater control and predictability in both cost and operations.
Why augmenting or replacing Microsoft AD CS is often the smarter move
For years, many enterprises have relied exclusively on a Microsoft solution known as Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS). This once presented its fair share of advantages: seamless integration within the Microsoft ecosystem, along with built-in PKI solutions and control over key usage and issuance policies.
With these benefits in mind, it's easy to see why some enterprises prefer to stick with this well-known and fully-trusted solution for now. Still, this presents many challenges that make it clear, the AD CS status quo is no longer sufficient. Issues associated with a continued reliance on a Microsoft technology stack include:
Lack of integrations beyond the Microsoft ecosystem, sparked by a reliance on Group Policy Objects (GPOs), which are not effective for non-Windows clients.
Manual management, leading to increased administrative overhead along with general inefficiency and an increased risk of misconfigurations.
Issues with accommodating hybrid employees and especially BYOD (bring your own device) arrangements, limiting workplace flexibility.
On-premises restrictions that prevent IT teams from leveraging cloud elasticity and hybrid opportunities.
With private solutions available from Sectigo, enterprises can move beyond AD CS and embrace the agility of cloud-native certificate management. Sectigo can facilitate full-on migrations to a cloud-based solution, complete with full lifecycle automation, or can be used to augment your existing AD CS deployment as needed.
You don’t need to fully replace Microsoft AD CS to modernize your internal PKI. Sectigo integrates seamlessly with the existing AD CS environments, providing minimal disruption while adding automation, visibility, and centralized control.
How Sectigo enables modern internal CA deployment
Sectigo supports a private approach to PKI (public key infrastructure) management by offering customized solutions that can leverage multiple deployment architectures. This grants organizations greater control over certificate issuance, trust hierarchies, and cryptographic standards.
Flexible trust models make it possible for enterprises to maintain their own root certificates, although it is also possible to harness the convenience and reliability of Sectigo-managed roots. Other perks include easy provisioning, automated management of public and private certificates through a single pane of glass for governance and control, enhanced visibility, and seamless reporting.
Realize the ROI of in-house PKI with Sectigo
The ROI of in-house PKI can be impressive, but this is best enhanced by embracing a CA-agnostic platform that supports both public and private digital certificates. This is one of the central benefits of leveraging Sectigo’s automated certificate management solutions, which offer broad protocol support and centralized visibility.
Interested in exploring the financial implications of private PKI? Use our ROI calculator to discover how you could stand to save by moving certificate management in-house with Sectigo. If you're ready to take the next step, check out Sectigo Certificate Manager (SCM) — a robust, universal CLM platform offering numerous integrations and advanced automation capabilities. Learn more about SCM or get started today.