Why Outsourcing Your PKI Provides the Best Value: A Total Cost of Ownership Analysis

Overview

Once one conclude that one needs a certificate to exchange information online securely, turn on the security inherent in existing applications, or authenticate to users, computers, VPN, the Web, or buildings, the next point of determination is: how can I do this cost-effectively without forfeiting quality? The answer is simple: outsource Public Key Infrastructure (PKI). Why should one consider outsourcing rather than deploying an in-house Certification Authority (CA)? An internal CA can be expensive to deploy, operate, and maintain. Organizations require knowledgeable staff, a formal and binding set of policies and procedures, secure facilities, hardware that meets future extensibility requirements, and PKI software to create and manage certificates, to name a few.