Private PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) is critical for trusted authentication and secure communication among internal applications, devices, workloads, machines, and services. While most organizations understand its importance, managing it effectively is still a struggle for many.

Traditionally, organizations manage private PKI on-premises for greater control, security, and customization. However, as new use cases emerge and identity demands grow, scaling in-house PKI to handle a rising number of certificates has become a daunting challenge for security teams. Legacy infrastructure, certificate sprawl, scattered CAs, and scarcity of PKI expertise have turned PKI management into a complex, resource-heavy process that pulls focus away from core business activities.

As an alternative to on-premises PKI, many organizations are now turning to PKI-as-a-Service (PKIaaS), a cloud-based solution that shifts PKI management to a specialized third-party service provider. Externally hosted and fully managed by the service provider, PKIaaS offers several advantages, such as streamlined PKI operations, higher IT efficiency, enhanced security, and low total cost of ownership—proving to be an ideal fit for modern private PKI needs.

Before discussing the benefits of PKIaaS, let’s examine the current challenges of managing PKI on-premises.

The Challenges of Managing On-Premises PKI

Managing PKI in-house often means juggling a host of complexities and resource demands. Maintaining PKI infrastructure requires significant effort and specialized tools, not to mention dedicated personnel who can handle configurations, certificate lifecycle management (CLM), and regular audits. For many IT teams, the expanding scale of PKI operations, the growing number of certificates, and the constant upkeep take away time that could be spent on core business priorities.

Then there’s the issue of CA sprawl. As companies grow, different departments and applications tend to spin up their own certificate authorities (CAs), creating fragmented processes and systems. This sprawl makes it hard to track certificates and introduces inconsistencies and blind spots, where unmanaged certificates may expire, leading to outages or vulnerabilities.

PKI management requires specialized skills, and skilled PKI professionals are hard to find and retain. Inadequate expertise can lead to mismanagement, in turn, leading to certificate expirations and vulnerabilities.

Further, managing PKI isn’t just about scaling to meet growing certificate needs. Compliance is a critical aspect of PKI management. As compliance standards like GDPR, HIPAA, PCI DSS, and others evolve, keeping up with regulatory demands and regularly auditing PKI processes requires PKI expertise, a lack of which leads to violations, hefty fines, and reputational damage.

Another significant challenge is the high costs. Between investment in infrastructure, scalability demands, regular maintenance, disaster recovery, and recruiting or training talent, the hidden costs of managing an on-premises PKI can quickly escalate.

Offload the Challenges of On-Premises PKI through PKI-as-a-Service

PKIaaS is transforming how organizations manage their private PKI, shifting PKI infrastructure management to a cloud provider specialized in delivering end-to-end PKI solutions. Here are some reasons why it’s the better option:

• Effortless Scalability

With PKIaaS, scaling your PKI to meet new demands is simple and seamless. As a cloud-based solution, PKIaaS enables you to support emerging use cases instantly—without investing in or deploying new infrastructure. This flexibility is ideal for both current requirements and future growth, whether you’re managing a rising certificate volume or expanding into new areas like IoT, DevOps, and hybrid/multi-cloud environments. PKIaaS adapts as you do, making it a perfect fit for today’s dynamic and expanding landscapes.

• Robust Security and Compliance

With PKIaaS, you can remotely deploy and operate a secure private CA environment in the cloud. Certificate Authorities (CAs) are often backed by FIPS-compliant HSMs, ensuring secure storage with high availability. All root CA creation functions, like key ceremonies, are handled virtually under strict security measures, which helps speed the PKIaaS deployment. Stringent access controls and multi-factor authentication are enforced to manage root CAs. Plus, root CAs can be kept offline, reducing exposure to potential threats and keeping the most critical parts of your PKI out of reach from unauthorized access. This level of layered security and controlled accessibility is difficult to replicate with in-house PKI.

Another advantage of PKIaaS is compliance. PKIaaS providers adhere to rigorous security standards and support compliance with industry standards such as FIPS, GDPR, HIPAA, PCI DSS, and others. This helps you (especially those organizations in highly regulated industries, such as healthcare and finance) ensure continuous compliance without the need for extensive internal oversight.

• Improved IT Efficiency

When your PKI is managed by a PKIaaS provider, your IT team no longer has to spend valuable time constantly monitoring, managing, maintaining, and securing the private PKI. Instead, they’re free to focus on the projects that matter most to your business. They can drive greater operational efficiency rather than getting bogged down in PKI maintenance.

• Extensive Integration Support

Unlike traditional on-premises PKI, PKIaaS is designed to integrate seamlessly with existing infrastructure. Whether you need to support cloud services, DevOps toolchains, ITSM, SIEM, MDM tools, or multiple public and private CAs, PKIaaS can offer flexible API-based integrations and auto-enrollment protocol support to match your unique needs. This allows you to extend secure PKI functionality across diverse platforms and environments without complex workarounds or added infrastructure.

• Certificate Lifecycle Management (CLM) Automation

Managing the lifecycle of thousands of certificates is challenging and time-consuming. Now, with shorter validity periods on the horizon and considered best practice, the renewal workload is set to increase dramatically. Advanced PKIaaS solutions tackle this head-on by offering fully integrated certificate lifecycle management (CLM), automating everything from issuance and renewal to revocation and provisioning. Automated CLM streamlines certificate management, frees up IT resources, reduces risks of outages or security breaches, and keeps you ahead on compliance.

• Cost-Effectiveness

With PKIaaS, you can skip the hefty upfront costs of hardware, software, and infrastructure. Instead, you get a simple, predictable subscription model where the provider takes care of all updates, maintenance, security, and scalability. This means less financial strain and immediate value for your organization, all while keeping your total cost of ownership low. Plus, by outsourcing PKI, you avoid the added expense of training or hiring dedicated PKI experts—saving time, money, and resources.

• Minimized Risk with 24/7 Monitoring and Support

With PKIaaS, you get round-the-clock monitoring and support to keep your PKI infrastructure running at its best. A dedicated support team is always ready to respond to any issues, minimizing downtime and reducing the risk of system outages. You can rest assured that your PKI infrastructure is being managed securely and efficiently.

As digital environments grow more complex and regulations tighten, the costs of managing PKI in-house can outweigh the benefits. Organizations are increasingly realizing that relying on the expertise of a dedicated PKIaaS provider is a smarter choice than struggling to manage everything within. By shifting to PKIaaS, you can implement a robust PKI without the hassle of daily PKI management.

As with any managed service, not all PKIaaS providers are created equal. To know what key factors to consider when evaluating potential PKIaaS providers, download our PKIaaS Buyer’s Guide.

Unlock the Benefits of PKIaaS with AppViewX AVX ONE PKIaaS

AVX ONE PKIaaS is a turnkey private PKI for all private trust use cases. You can set up a secure private CA hierarchy in minutes and start issuing private trust certificates right away. As a cloud-based service, there is nothing to deploy and no hardware to purchase or manage.

AVX ONE PKIaaS is delivered via the AppViewX AVX ONE Platform that brings together modern PKIaaS and end-to-end certificate lifecycle management automation for private and public certificates within a centralized console. The solution can be consumed as a service (SaaS) or deployed in an enterprise network in public clouds, private clouds, or private data centers.

If you would like to know more about AVX ONE PKIaaS, download our datasheet, or if you would like to understand how to easily migrate from your on-premises PKI to cloud-based PKI, talk to one of our experts today!

*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from Blogs Archive - AppViewX authored by Krupa Patil. Read the original post at: https://www.appviewx.com/blogs/why-pkiaas-is-a-smarter-and-secure-alternative-to-on-premises-pki/