Overview of SSL and digital certificates
In an enterprise network deployment, you must provide secure communication between the Identity server and the software products and components with which the server communicates.
SSL protocol uses signed digital certificates from a certificate authority (CA) for authentication. SSL secures communication in a configuration. SSL provides encryption of the data that is exchanged between the applications. Encryption makes data that is transmitted over the network intelligible only to the intended recipient.
Signed digital certificates enable two applications that connect in a network to authenticate their identity. An application that acts as an SSL server presents its credentials to verify to an SSL client. The SSL client then verifies that the application is the entity it claims to be. You can configure an application that acts as an SSL server so that it requires the application that acts as an SSL client to present its credentials in a certificate. In this way, the two-way exchange of certificates is completed. A third-party certificate authority issues signed certificates for a fee. Some utilities, such as those provided by OpenSSL, can also provide signed certificates.
- Well-known and widely used by other organizations.
- Local to a specific region or a company.
Many applications, such as web browsers, use the CA certificates of well-known certificate authorities. Using a well-known CA eliminates or reduces the task of distributing CA certificates throughout the security zones in a network.