RISE with SAP promises a transformation, a new era of efficiency and agility in the cloud. Many companies see this as an opportunity to modernize their IT landscape and free themselves from legacy systems. But amid all the excitement about the new possibilities, there is one crucial question that is often overlooked: Who actually takes care of your SSL/TLS certificates in this new, emerging cloud world?
Remaining customer responsibility: SAP certificate management
It would be easy to assume that migrating to RISE with SAP also means that all responsibility for system and communication security is seamlessly transferred to SAP. But this is a common misconception. While SAP provides infrastructure and platform components, the management of your SSL/TLS certificates, which are essential for encrypted communication, remains a critical customer responsibility. Effective SAP certificate management is therefore essential.
Think of digital certificates as passports for your data and applications. In an increasingly networked and complex SAP landscape that is expanding with RISE with cloud and hybrid scenarios, your data needs passports that are always valid. And these passports have a short expiration date – usually a maximum of one year. This requires robust certificate lifecycle management.
Manual processes: A security risk
The problem is compounded: With more applications, more connections, and the dynamics of the cloud, more and more SAP certificates will need to be exchanged in the future. Continuing to do this manually is not only extremely time-consuming and error-prone, but also poses a huge security risk. Every expired certificate leads to a sudden standstill in your business processes. Security requirements are constantly increasing, and with them the frequency with which certificates must be checked and renewed.
Manually exporting and importing certificates, creating CSRs, and maintaining trust stores (STRUST) in ABAP, Java, HANA, Web Dispatcher, or SAProuter systems, as well as SAP PI PO systems, quickly becomes too much for your basis administrators to handle. It is a manual balancing act where one misstep can have serious consequences. Modern certificate management is the solution.
ALPACA: Your partner for automated certificate management for SAP
To fully leverage the benefits of RISE with SAP while ensuring security and smooth operation, an automated certificate management solution is essential. It closes the gap created by ongoing customer responsibility and ensures that your digital communications are always protected.
With ALPACA Certificate Management, you can automate the management of the entire certificate lifecycle in your SAP systems – even in complex cloud and hybrid landscapes, including RISE with SAP. ALPACA enables proactive validation and monitoring of certificate validity by regularly identifying all certificates from your PSE and STRUST stores and checking them for critical conditions.
Newly issued certificates are distributed easily and across systems, either via bulk upload, external CAs, or URLs. ALPACA takes care of automatically importing the certificates into the respective stores and updating STRUST. The renewal of server certificates, including the creation of CSRs and the transfer of affected trusted certificates, is also handled fully automatically. A backup of the old PSE files and a possible rollback ensure that your PSE files are secure at all times.
Contact us today to learn more about ALPACA Certificate Management!
Maximum security with maximum agility
Don't let the complexity of certificate lifecycle management slow you down when operating your SAP landscape in the cloud. Ensure a stable and secure foundation today so you can focus on what really matters: the innovation and growth of your business.