Enterprise SSL Solutions: A Buyers Guide

Having SSL certificates, or what are now officially known as TLS certificates, has always been a requirement for corporate IT organizations. Certificates encrypt data as it is being transferred between servers and web-facing browsers as well as protect data as it moves between servers. Certificates also play a critical role in making sure that only authorized users are accessing data they have permissions to see and share.

Unfortunately, it’s become too tempting to consider certificates that are based on widely accepted standards just another commodity product. In principle, every Certificate Authority (CA) provides the same level of encryption and cryptographic functions. Certificates, however, are not all the same. There are different classes of certificates that provide significantly different levels of protection, which IT teams need to know how best to employ based on their requirements.

There is, of course, no shortage of free SSL certificates available. However, as tempting as those offers might be, like most free things they can wind up being more trouble than they’re worth.