Modernizing Certificate Management with AWS Private CA
In this post, we will see how AWS AWS Private Certificate Authority (CA) with Resource Access Manager (RAM) enables organizations to centralize and streamline certificate management across multiple AWS accounts.
Balu Mathew
Amazon Employee
Published Mar 3, 2025
In today's digital landscape, secure and efficient certificate management is crucial for organizations handling sensitive transactions. This blog post explores how a large financial services organizations modernize their certificate infrastructure using AWS Private Certificate Authority (Private CA), streamlining operations and enhancing security across their multi-account environment.
Organizations face several challenges with their existing/legacy certificate management systems:
1. Reliance on legacy private certificate management
2. Decentralized certificate control across multiple platforms
3. High operational costs associated with maintaining multiple Certificate Authorities
By leveraging AWS Resource Access Manager (RAM) to share the Private CA's created, we can create a centralized certificate management solution to manage certificates at Scale across your orgaanizations.
Certificates created within the AWS Private CA can be shared with member accounts in the organization using AWS Resource Access Manager (RAM). This allowed us to:
1. Centralize certificate management in a single AWS account
2. Share the Private CA across their entire AWS organization
3. Streamline certificate issuance and renewal processes
4. Significantly reduce costs associated with multiple CAs
- Set up a central Private CA: A new AWS Private CA was created in their Shared Tooling/Security Account, establishing a centralized certificate authority.
- Configuring Resource Sharing via RAM: Using AWS RAM, created a Resource Share for the Private CA, enabling secure sharing across their AWS organization.
- Defining Access Principles: Grant permissions to member accounts. You can choose to share across AWS Organization, specific AWS Accounts, IAM Roles, and Service Roles, ensuring granular control over certificate access.
- Accepting the Resource Share: Member/Workload Accounts within the organization access the AWS RAM to accept the shared Private CA resource.
By implementing AWS Private CA with RAM, we could achieve:
- Centralized Control: Certificate management is now consolidated in a single account, improving oversight and security.
- Simplified Renewals: The centralized approach streamlined the certificate renewal process, reducing administrative overhead.
- Cost Savings: The solution delivered a cost reduction of approximately $400 per CA by eliminating the need for multiple certificate authorities.
- Enhanced Security: The solution provided a more robust and standardized approach to certificate issuance and management across the organization.
For organizations looking to modernize their certificate management infrastructure, AWS Private CA with Resource Access Manager offers a compelling solution that combines security, efficiency, and scalability.
By centralizing certificate management, simplifying renewals, and leveraging AWS's powerful tools, organizations can position themselves for more secure and efficient operations in their rapidly evolving digital infrastructure.
Any opinions in this post are those of the individual author and may not reflect the opinions of AWS.