Certificate Management Service for Virtual Appliances
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing certificate management technologies, such as CMPv2, SCEP, and ACME, are not feasible in virtualized environments like vCenter and VMware infrastructure, as they require direct internet access to renew certificates, which is not secure and complicates infrastructure management.
Innovation Solution
A cloud service is created within the virtualization platform to manage certificates for connected servers and virtual appliances, using a cloud service gateway and certificate management agents to automate certificate renewal and replacement without external internet access.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Extent of automation
If certificate management protocols (CMPv2, SCEP, ACME) are used to enable automatic certificate renewal, then certificate management automation is improved, but direct internet access is required which compromises security and complicates infrastructure management
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a certificate management service as an intermediary component within the virtualization platform that mediates between the virtual appliances and external certificate authorities. This service receives certificate requests from virtual appliances, manages the renewal process, and handles communication with external CAs, thereby eliminating the need for virtual appliances to have direct internet access while maintaining automation capability
Solution Approach 2:
The patent extracts the certificate management functionality from the virtual appliances themselves and relocates it to a dedicated certificate management service within the virtualization platform. This separation allows the virtual appliances to remain isolated from external internet access while the certificate management service handles all external communications, thus resolving the security contradiction
2Adaptability or versatility
If direct internet access is provided to virtual appliances for certificate renewal, then certificate renewal capability is improved, but infrastructure complexity and security management burden increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a universal certificate management service that serves multiple virtual appliances and manages all certificate-related operations (issuance, renewal, revocation) centrally. This multi-functional service eliminates the need for each virtual appliance to have independent internet access and certificate management capabilities, thereby reducing infrastructure complexity while maintaining versatile certificate renewal functionality
Data Source
AI summary
Certificate management as-a-service for software-defined datacenters is described herein. One method includes receiving an indication of an expiry of a first certificate of a virtual appliance in a virtualized environment via a certificate management agent of a gateway device in communication with the appliance, and performing a certificate replacement process responsive to determining that the expiry of the first certificate exceeds a threshold, wherein the certificate generation process includes sending a request to the appliance via an agent associated with the appliance, receiving, from the appliance, a certificate signing request (CSR), sending the CSR to an external certificate authority, receiving a second certificate from the certificate authority, and replacing the first certificate with the second certificate.