What Is Managed PKI and How Does It Work?

If you’ve decided to make the move to secure certificate-based authentication, you need to figure out whether to build your own Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) or use a managed PKI (MPKI). A PKI provides the infrastructure required to issue and manage digital certificates used in asymmetric cryptography. It includes components for operating Certificate Authorities (CAs), publishing revocation information, enforcing policy, and managing certificate lifecycle while private keys are typically generated and stored securely on the client device or in hardware security modules (HSMs). 

Is it better to build your own private PKI or use an MPKI, though? Here we will explain what MPKI is, how it works, and help you determine which of these options is best for your organization’s needs.

What Is Managed PKI?

Managed PKI, or PKI-as-a-Service (PKIaaS), is an operational model in which a third-party provider deploys and maintains an organization’s PKI infrastructure, typically within hardened cloud or managed hosting environments. With managed PKI, the vendor builds and maintains the PKI, sparing your IT department a lot of problems including hiring additional staff to keep the PKI up and running. Managed PKI solutions streamline certificate issuance, installation, remediation, and renewal — and can even automate TLS/SSL and other PKI certificates.

In response to increasingly sophisticated security threats, many organizations are phasing out password-based security in favor of certificate-based authentication. PKI is a foundational component of public key cryptography and the secure authentication model it enables. PKI manages digital certificates that bind identities to public keys, allowing applications and protocols to authenticate users and encrypt communications securely.

Because managed PKI services are generally hosted in the cloud, they’re highly scalable and can be accessed from any location. There’s no need to create a separate PKI for each of your offices. With a comprehensive managed PKI solution, organizations can centralize certificate visibility and control under a single platform, reducing complexity, minimizing outages, and lowering operational risk.

Why Do Organizations Use Managed PKI Solutions?

Organizations often choose managed PKI services when they want the security benefits of certificate-based authentication but don’t want the complexity of building and maintaining a private PKI from scratch. Although building an in-house PKI gives security teams total architectural control, it also introduces operational demands that many IT teams may not be equipped to handle long term. 

Several common challenges with in-house PKI include:

• Limited budget for capital expenditures: Building an in-house PKI typically requires hardware security modules (HSMs) to protect CA private keys. Enterprise-grade HSM deployments can cost thousands to tens of thousands of dollars per unit, with high-availability clusters costing significantly more.
• Pressure to scale quickly: Building an in-house PKI can take months. As organizations expand into more locations or increase device counts, their needs for certificate issuance can grow rapidly. 
• Lack of internal expertise: PKI architecture is highly specialized. Many IT teams are highly capable but may not have the deep, hands-on PKI experience they need to adequately manage this service.
• Desire for operational simplicity: Beyond cost and staffing concerns, many organizations simply want a streamlined approach to PKI management. Offloading certificate lifecycle management to a managed platform allows internal teams to focus on broader security initiatives, identity governance, and threat detection.

Who Uses PKIs?

PKIs are an integral security component for numerous types of organizations and their networks. Here are just a few common types of organizations that often use PKIs:

• K-12
• Higher Education
• SMBs
• Enterprise
• MSPs

PKIs offer a range of benefits for each type of organization. For example, a K-12 school with students learning remotely can issue certificates to BYODs. With managed, cloud-based PKI from SecureW2, students can enroll themselves in seconds.

Larger enterprises likely have many employees working from home and logging onto the network through a VPN. These businesses can use a PKI to set up certificate-based authentication for the VPN.

Many types of organizations need to provide role-based access. Schools don’t necessarily want students to have access to the same resources as faculty, and businesses have separate departments with their own resources. PKIs provide strong identity binding through PKI certificates, which can then be used by RADIUS servers, network access control (NAC) systems, and policy engines to enforce role-based segmentation and access control.

What Are the Different Types of PKI Certificates?

There are several types of PKI certificates. Each is designed for a specific security use case:

• TLS/SSL certificates are the most commonly used certificates to keep websites secure. They encrypt data sent between servers and users, and they’re an essential technology behind the HTTPS protocol used in web browsers.
• Code signing certificates let software developers digitally sign the applications they build. These signatures prove that the code came from a trusted source and hasn’t been altered by unauthorized parties.
• Email certificates encrypt email messages and digitally sign them to verify the sender’s identity. Also known as S/MIME (Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) certificates, they provide a strong defense against phishing attacks and assure recipients that email contents haven’t been tampered with in transit.
• Client authentication certificates enable authentication without relying on risky passwords. They verify the identity of any user or device that connects to a network, virtual private network (VPN), or application.
• Document signing certificates authenticate digital documents. They also ensure document signers can’t deny having signed a document.

How Are PKI Certificates Managed?

Certificate lifecycle management (CLM) is a process that oversees all aspects of a certificate’s existence from creation to retirement. There are six phases in a certificate’s lifecycle:

• Discovery: Automated tools can scan the network and find every certificate deployed. This process helps security teams and other stakeholders prevent certificate expiration.
• Issuance: A CA creates a new certificate when a user or device requests it.
• Provisioning and deployment: Installing a certificate on the appropriate systems often happens automatically in modern environments.
• Validation and monitoring: After a certificate goes live, a CLM system can continuously track its status, compliance, and expiration date.
• Renewal and re-keying: Replacing a certificate before its expiration date is a process often similar to issuing a new certificate.
• Revocation: It’s best to remove certificates from use if they’ve been compromised or are no longer needed.

How Do I Get a PKI Certificate?

Developers, IT admins, and other technical staff often need to implement PKI certificates to secure their applications or authenticate users on Wi-Fi or a VPN. The process of getting a PKI certificate involves:

1. Generating a public key and a private key.
2. Creating a certificate signing request (CSR) that includes the public key as well as some kind of identifying information.
3. Submitting the CSR to a certificate authority.
4. Receiving a digitally signed certificate and installing it.

Depending on your organization’s PKI setup, many of these steps may happen automatically behind the scenes:

• If your organization uses Active Directory, you’ll probably request your certificate through a web portal that connects to Active Directory Certificate Services.
• If you need to secure a website, you can purchase a TLS/SSL certificate by visiting the website of a commercial certificate authority.
• If your organization uses managed PKI, your provider probably lets you request a certificate through a self-service portal — or automates the process to minimize human error.

With managed PKI from SecureW2, customers securing managed devices receive PKI certificates automatically. For unmanaged devices and bring-your-own-devices (BYOD), users can follow a secure self-service onboarding process through the JoinNow Platform.

What Features Should You Look for in a Managed PKI Solution?

Not all managed PKI platforms are built the same. Most providers handle certificate issuance and maintenance; however, the depth of automation, visibility, and integration can vary a lot. If you’re evaluating PKI options, here are a few of the most important features.

Centralized Certificate Visibility

Certificates multiply quickly as organizations grow. A strong managed PKI solution should provide a centralized dashboard so you can have full visibility of certificates across servers, applications, devices, VPNs, and cloud environments. A centralized dashboard should let you see every certificate, including its status, expiration date, and associated device or user. 

This kind of transparency helps prevent outages that expired certificates could cause and makes it easier to demonstrate compliance during audits.

Advanced Automation Capabilities

Basic automation is common across managed PKI services, but mature platforms take it further. Look for features such as automated discovery of unmanaged certificates, policy-based issuance, auto-renewal workflows, and real-time revocation when devices fall out of compliance. Automation reduces human error and ensures your security posture scales as your organization grows.

Integration With Your Existing Ecosystem

A managed PKI shouldn’t operate in isolation. It should integrate seamlessly with your identity providers (IdPs), directory services, MDM/UEM platforms, RADIUS servers, network access control systems, and cloud infrastructure. Strong API support and standards-based protocols allow your PKI to become a part of a broader security architecture rather than a standalone system. This is especially important in hybrid and multi-cloud environments.

High Availability and Redundancy

Certificates underpin authentication and encrypted communication, so downtime can have a widespread impact. A robust managed PKI solution should offer built-in redundancy, geographically distributed infrastructure, and clearly defined service-level agreements (SLAs) to ensure your certificate authority remains available during outages, maintenance events, or regional disruptions.

Granular Access Controls and Audit Logging

PKI is a foundational trust system, so administrative access must be tightly controlled. Look for platforms that support role-based access control (RBAC) and provide detailed audit logs and policy enforcement tools. Comprehensive logging improves security oversight and simplifies compliance reporting for regulated industries.

Secure Self-Service Enrollment

For organizations that employ remote workers or utilize bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policies, secure self-service enrollment can dramatically reduce IT overhead. Users should be able to request and install certificates through a guided onboarding process without compromising security standards.

Is It Better to Build On-Site or Use a Managed PKI Service?

Should you build a PKI on-site or use a managed PKI service? There are advantages and disadvantages to both options:

Benefits of On-Site PKI

There’s one major advantage to building your own private PKI: You have total control over it. Provided you have the staff with the requisite cybersecurity knowledge, you get the final say in how your PKI is built. For some businesses, this control is non-negotiable.

Disadvantages of On-Site PKI

In general, there are more disadvantages than advantages to building your own PKI:

• Increased overhead: The most obvious disadvantage is the time and effort that goes into constructing PKI on-premises. A PKI isn’t simple to build, so you’d likely need to hire additional IT professionals to complete and run it for you.
• Time constraints: On top of needing to hire more employees, the construction of the PKI will take time. If you’re on a schedule to deploy continuous-trust maturity, the amount of time it can take to finish building your PKI can be a setback.
• Physical space limitations and increased hardware costs: PKIs use physical hardware and take up space in your office. When factoring in hardware, staffing, maintenance, and disaster recovery planning, on-prem. PKI deployments often involve significantly higher total cost of ownership compared to subscription-based managed PKI services.
• Security risks: You’ll need to provide a safe location for your PKI, somewhere that can be protected from power outages, fire hazards, and even potentially your own guests or employees.
• Additional IT training requirements and risks from misconfiguration: Furthermore, knowing how to build a PKI using tools such as Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS) takes knowledge and experience. If your current IT staff doesn’t have that expertise, they could easily misconfigure part of the PKI, leaving your certificate authentication system vulnerable.
• Increased complexity for multi-site organizations: Finally, the fact that private PKIs are typically on-site can be an issue in and of itself. Your organization may have multiple locations, a problem that is compounded when you have departments filled with remote employees. Supporting distributed offices and remote employees with an on-prem. PKI requires careful architectural planning to ensure high availability, redundancy, and secure remote access to the CA infrastructure. 

In an increasingly cloud-based environment, key components requiring physical hardware across a business can stifle a business’s growth.

Benefits of Managed PKI

All the disadvantages of an on-site PKI are advantages when it comes to managed PKI services:

• Improved physical security: Managed PKI solutions aren’t as susceptible to physical weaknesses as their servers are generally kept in extremely secure and stable environments where they are sheltered from earthquakes, fires, and power outages. They’re also usually locked down, so you can be sure bad actors don’t have access to them.
• Built-in automation and security elements: Experts build managed PKIs, so nothing is overlooked, as opposed to what might happen if you relied on an IT professional with minimal experience.
• PKI management expertise: When you use a managed PKI, you’re also getting access to that same team of PKI experts that builds and maintains the PKI. With SecureW2, you get 24/5 access to these experts. Whenever you have an issue, it will be quickly resolved, ensuring seamless operation.
• Cost and space savings: You don’t need to hire extra staff to implement a managed PKI, nor do you have to invest in costly physical hardware. Additionally, you don’t need to find space in your office to keep the PKI safe. Managed PKI pricing is straightforward and takes the form of a monthly subscription.
• Quicker implementation: A managed PKI can be integrated into your organization much more quickly, since you’re not waiting for it to be built. In fact, many SecureW2 customers can begin using their managed PKI in a matter of hours.
• Scalability: Managed PKIs are almost always located in the cloud. All your office locations and remote employees will have access to the PKI. This makes a managed PKI much more scalable in the long run. As your business grows and possibly requires more locations, you won’t need to worry about recreating a PKI at each one.

Disadvantages of Managed PKI

As with all other things, there are some drawbacks to managed PKIs. The main one is that you don’t have the same degree of control over it as you would if built your own from the ground up.

This isn’t as big an issue as you might expect. Services like the SecureW2 managed PKI include a straightforward management GUI that makes customization a simple matter. You’re not sacrificing much control, since managed PKIs tend to be extremely flexible and customizable.

The second disadvantage to managed PKI services is that you rely on the provider’s team for technical support. With reliable PKI service providers like SecureW2, though, your needs won’t get lost amidst a flood of other customers. The SecureW2 team has experience working with thousands of customer PKIs, so you can rest assured that you’re in efficient, expert hands.

Does Managed PKI Have Vulnerabilities?

Due to the frequency and intensity of cyberattacks, no digital security method is impenetrable. Whether organizations use on-prem. PKI or a managed PKI service, they must watch out for:

• Compromised keys: If an unauthorized person gains access to a private key, they can use it to bypass security controls, read sensitive messages, and digitally sign malicious applications as if they were approved software. Some organizations store their private keys in unsecured locations or fail to encrypt them, leaving open a key vulnerability.
• Misconfigured certificates: Even when certificates are active and valid, a misconfiguration, like a domain name mismatch, can prevent them from encrypting websites or validating identities. This can lead to devastating data breaches.
• Poor lifecycle management: When certificates expire, critical systems may go offline. As admins work to restore these systems, their temporary workarounds may create security gaps that allow attackers to gain unauthorized access to network resources.

Which Is More Secure: On-Premises PKI or Managed PKI?

Neither on-prem. PKI nor managed PKI is inherently more secure in the face of these threats. Security ultimately depends on implementation, ongoing management, and the ability to maintain strict controls over private keys, certificate lifecycles, and access policies.

But with on-prem. PKI, organizations must safeguard their own systems, and their success will be a function of their in-house expertise. PKI management is notoriously complex, requiring deep specialized knowledge to handle tasks such as key generation, revocation, compliance auditing, and timely patching. Organizations without dedicated PKI teams or sufficient resources often face increased risks from human error, configuration mistakes, or delayed responses to emerging vulnerabilities.

With managed PKI, organizations can leverage the specialized expertise of an experienced service provider. Providers: 

• Maintain hardened environments
• Follow industry best practices
• Invest heavily in threat detection and rapid remediation

This reduces operational burden while improving consistency.

The Verdict: Managed PKI Solutions Are More Convenient, Affordable and Scalable

If you want a PKI you have total control over from the start and aren’t spread across multiple locations, an on-site PKI could be right for you. But in most other situations, a managed PKI is usually the better choice.

The advantages of managed PKIs greatly outweigh the disadvantages. They’re affordable, scalable, and highly customizable. Chances are, a managed PKI is the right choice for your organization, too. Click here to read about how one of our customers benefited from implementing our turnkey managed PKI services.

A Secure Approach to Managed PKI

Your organization can protect itself against the most significant security threats associated with PKI by pairing it with the right access control technology. For example, the 802.1X protocol uses a RADIUS server to validate identities and authorize access. And by using X.509 digital certificates issued through a PKI and integrating your PKI with your wider environment, you can enable continuous authentication to reduce the chances of unauthorized devices infiltrating your network.

JoinNow Dynamic PKI is an automated X.509 solution that issues, renews, and revokes certificates in real time based on the signals it reads on your network. Schedule a demo with SecureW2 to see how it works.

---

Frequently Asked Questions

Is PKI still relevant today?

Yes, PKI remains a foundational technology for modern cybersecurity because it enables secure authentication, encrypted communication and identity verification across devices, applications, and networks. Certificate-based authentication has become increasingly important as organizations adopt hybrid work environments and cloud-based services.

What is managed PKI pricing?

Managed PKI pricing typically follows a subscription-based model rather than requiring large upfront investments. Costs are generally determined by factors such as the number of certificates, users, or devices the platform supports, allowing organizations to scale their security infrastructure as their needs grow.

What is the difference between PKI and a certificate authority?

PKI is the overall system used to manage digital identities and encryption keys. A certificate authority (CA) is one component of that system, and it is responsible for issuing and signing digital certificates. Think of PKI as the complete security framework, while CA functions as the trusted authority that validates and distributes certificates within that framework.

Is managed PKI compliant with regulations like HIPAA or PCI DSS?

Managed PKI solutions can support compliance requirements for regulated industries by providing strong authentication, encryption, audit logging, and identity verification. Compliance does depend on how the system is configured and used within an organization’s broader security and governance policies. Organizations should review their specific regulatory requirements when implementing any authentication infrastructure.

How long does it take to deploy a managed PKI?

Deployment time depends on organizational complexity, but many cloud-based managed PKI platforms can be integrated within hours or days. SecureW2 Managed PKI is designed to support rapid onboarding through automation, self-service enrollment, and API-based configuration.

What happens if a managed PKI provider goes down?

Reputable managed PKI providers design their infrastructure with redundancy, failover protection, and high-availability architecture. If a component fails, backup systems are in place to help maintain service continuity. Organizations should review SLAs, disaster recovery plans, and uptime agreements when selecting a provider.