EJBCA Enterprise Cloud - Premium Support
Flexible certificate management has supported strict compliance and complex PKI customization
What is our primary use case?
My main use case for EJBCA Enterprise involves managing and maintaining the complete lifecycle of certificates and addressing client needs while maintaining the PKI and CA certificates, ensuring all CA certificates and end user certificates comply with our internal security requirements and legal obligations regarding certificate exchange.
A practical example of how I use EJBCA Enterprise daily is to deliver certificates for the appropriate client, ensuring EJBCA provides all requested certificates and can publish information about revoked certificates through the CRL. There is a law in our country that requires us to issue certificates for user authentication with a certificate lifetime of two years. I use EJBCA Enterprise for this, modifying and adjusting all certificate configurations, and I can also enforce certificate requests. For instance, if a requested certificate is produced with a public key having a weak exponent, we cannot accept it. This involves configuring and ensuring the solution works properly.
Regarding my main use case and daily tasks with EJBCA Enterprise, I can confirm that it is very flexible, allowing us to accomplish what we need. It is a very good PKI solution that enables us to generate certificates and ensure they comply with specific regulations or client needs. The daily tasks revolve around this flexibility, and EJBCA Enterprise excels in that area. I would also mention that communication with the support portal about Keyfactor is decent for regular questions, but when seeking expertise on the solution, it can be challenging.
How has it helped my organization?
EJBCA Enterprise has positively impacted my organization by providing flexibility regarding certificate profiles. Previously, I utilized another PKI solution from a well-regarded vendor, but EJBCA Enterprise allows me to create certificates as needed, filter requests efficiently, and implement mechanisms quickly while adhering to regulatory duties concerning certificates. EJBCA Enterprise offers precision in certificate management.
What is most valuable?
The best feature EJBCA Enterprise offers is its support, which provides good answers to questions. Additionally, it provides a very complete registration authority within the solution, supplying all necessary information about certificates, including trust chains and CRLs. It also provides numerous logs and many possibilities regarding certificate requests without a registration authority, such as ACME and SCEP, which can be beneficial in some environments. An important capability is the ability to build a custom PKI with multiple HSMs, which is a major advantage since EJBCA Enterprise can integrate with various HSMs from different vendors. A notable feature is the extensive configuration possibilities regarding certificate templates and profiles, offering unparalleled flexibility compared to other PKI solutions on the market. While the user experience may be slightly complex, I can essentially customize certificates in various formats, such as X.509, SSH, or ITSM format, making it a very comprehensive PKI solution.
What needs improvement?
EJBCA Enterprise needs to improve its user experience regarding the UI.
EJBCA Enterprise could be improved by simplifying the deployment process. Currently, making a custom installation requires creating and deploying WildFly before the EJBCA Enterprise installation, which adds complexity. Additionally, I believe EJBCA Enterprise should enhance its REST API options, as the current offerings are limited compared to the very complete SOAP API. Furthermore, deploying an OCSP server could improve the certificate situation by providing real-time updates on certificate status for users who may not be well-versed in cryptography. Lastly, EJBCA Enterprise should develop better data exposure so that if a team wants real-time data access in the PKI about certificates, there would be an endpoint for that, allowing for statistical insights.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using EJBCA Enterprise for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
EJBCA Enterprise is very stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
EJBCA Enterprise is very scalable. As long as your infrastructure permits, you can add and request as many certificates as you want. The only limitation is the infrastructure itself.
How are customer service and support?
Customer support is good for regular questions, but when I require expert advice on high-skill questions, it can be challenging. I would rate customer support a six on a scale of one to ten.
What other advice do I have?
My advice for others looking into using EJBCA Enterprise is to have a solid understanding of PKI and RFC recommendations before beginning, as EJBCA Enterprise offers many possibilities that can be overwhelming. Knowing what you want beforehand allows you to effectively build what you need using EJBCA Enterprise.
Digital signatures have strengthened compliance and user access control but still need performance tuning
What is our primary use case?
My main use case for EJBCA Enterprise is for certificate issuance for users and in the digital signature company.
A specific example of how I use EJBCA Enterprise for certificate issuance and digital signatures in my company is that digital signatures are used in my regions for signing PDF documents in business-to-customer business models, and our regulatory compliance is aligned with the Ministry of Information and Digital as a root CA in Indonesian regions.
EJBCA Enterprise is only used for digital signatures in my company and for generating TLS or SSL certificates for internal users.
How has it helped my organization?
EJBCA Enterprise has positively impacted our organization. However, we still struggle with regulatory compliance. EJBCA Enterprise is not used or approved for public use at this time, as we currently only use it internally until we receive permission to make the product public, allowing customers to use our applications with EJBCA Enterprise as the certificate tool for issuance.
Internally, EJBCA Enterprise helps my team with multi-factor authentication for accessing EJBCA Enterprise as our core system. We can install certificates for super administrators, so not all internal staff can use EJBCA Enterprise—only designated personnel.
What is most valuable?
The best features EJBCA Enterprise offers are that it is very easy to install, especially with the appliance or OVA version we are using. It integrates easily with HSM, it is easy to monitor because it has a good GUI and website interface, and it is more secure than other competitors.
The features that help my team day-to-day, such as easy integration with HSM and having a good GUI, allow us to simply deploy EJBCA Enterprise into virtual machines. The appliance website provides options to integrate with HSM by simply inputting the IP and port to test the connections, ensuring all integrations are successfully connected.
The new version of EJBCA Enterprise allows us to back up the system and logs more easily, providing a restore menu in the appliance web interface.
What needs improvement?
EJBCA Enterprise can be improved once we start the digital signature business and after our business makes a decision to use EJBCA Enterprise at scale.
I chose a rating of seven based on my seven years of experience. I assigned a three rating because EJBCA Enterprise is a high-resource system, and there are instances where the CPU peaks for no apparent reason, making it difficult to investigate.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using EJBCA Enterprise for almost seven years.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have encountered sudden issues within our company related to our core systems regarding EJBCA Enterprise's scalability.
How are customer service and support?
EJBCA Enterprise provides access to their support, which is very helpful.
EJBCA Enterprise's customer support always responds to our issues when we submit tickets from the Keyfactor principal portals.
I rate the customer support a six.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
From the beginning, we made a decision to start using EJBCA Enterprise in our company.
What was our ROI?
EJBCA Enterprise is our core system. The employees needed are not for using EJBCA Enterprise but for serving our public users.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My experience with pricing shows that it is very high and expensive. The setup cost is manageable, but licensing is expensive each year.
What other advice do I have?
On a scale of one to ten, I rate EJBCA Enterprise a seven.
Regarding EJBCA Enterprise's AI capabilities, I recommend its governance and security features, as they provide very high security through multi-factor authentication, login via certificates, and options for access control for those who can use EJBCA Enterprise.
My advice to others considering EJBCA Enterprise is that I recommend using the new version with the OVA version, especially the appliance for on-premises deployment, as it is very easy to install, integrate, and work with APIs, along with other components such as EJBCA Enterprise as a certificate authority or EJBCA Enterprise as a validation authority, including other products from Keyfactor such as SignServer and HSM.