Is SSL/TLS certificate expired or is it about to expire? Why it matters for application delivery!

Communication security and certificate use is one of the most important aspects of application delivery today.

SSL/TLS certificates are principal elements in establishing information security, and while we roll out new services and applications their importance is clearly evident. Once a service or an application is in operation it can be easily forgotten how managing them can become a nuisance, especially for organizations with large numbers of certificates in use.

Certificates expire after some time and have to be renewed.

Expired certificates can block important application workflows or transactions and consequently make application useless for an end-user. Having access to the right information can help detect certificate expiration in advance, so you can trigger necessary processes for certificate renewal. All of this is critical for application delivery.

‍HYCU SCOM Management Pack for F5 BIG-IP was designed to help you manage certificates in the following ways:

• Automatic discovery and monitoring of certificates for all sites served by a virtual server
• No special configuration is required, information is collected about certificates used on F5 devices automatically and then monitors them out of the box.
• Default warnings will be displayed 30 days before certificate expiration, so the renewal process is initiated, without delay. A warning period can be set according to organization needs and regulatory and compliance policies.
• Critical alerts will be issued once a certificate is expired. A list of expired certificates on virtual servers can be easily detected in a dashboard like the one that follows.

Keeping certificates valid is still a huge challenge for IT departments, mostly because of set policies determined by each organization or by the number of monitoring tools used. For IT departments and application teams using SCOM such challenges are easy to solve. By using SCOM, all any user needs to do is bring the specifics into SCOM and they have an ability to gain instant control over the certificates.

If your organization uses SCOM as a monitoring platform, you will need a solution that can help verify certificates and the overall health of your F5 BIG-IP configuration with HYCU SCOM Management Pack for F5 BIG-IP. You can use a 45-day free trial here or contact us at info@hycu.com for more information or questions.