AWS Certificate Manager for Managing SSL/TLS Certificates in DevOps

Charles Ituah
Cloud Native Daily
Published in
3 min readMay 9, 2023

Introduction

In today’s world, security is of utmost importance, and SSL/TLS certificates play a vital role in securing web traffic. AWS Certificate Manager (ACM) is a service that simplifies the process of managing and deploying SSL/TLS certificates for applications running on AWS. In this article, we will explore how ACM can be used in DevOps to manage SSL/TLS certificates.

What is AWS Certificate Manager?

AWS Certificate Manager (ACM) is a service that enables you to provision, manage, and deploy SSL/TLS certificates for use with AWS services and your internal connected resources. ACM takes the complexity out of the certificate management process and automates many tasks, such as renewing certificates and deploying them to your AWS resources.

Benefits of using AWS Certificate Manager

Simplified certificate management

ACM simplifies the process of managing SSL/TLS certificates by providing a centralized location where you can request, manage, and deploy certificates. With ACM, you no longer need to worry about the complexities of certificate management, such as generating private keys, creating certificate signing requests, and renewing certificates.

Automated certificate deployment

ACM automates the process of deploying SSL/TLS certificates to your AWS resources. You can easily deploy certificates to resources such as Elastic Load Balancers, CloudFront distributions, and API Gateway endpoints. ACM also supports automatic renewal of certificates, ensuring that your resources are always secure.

Cost-effective

ACM is a cost-effective solution for managing SSL/TLS certificates. With ACM, you only pay for the certificates that you use, and there are no upfront costs or long-term commitments. Additionally, ACM can help you avoid costly downtime by automatically renewing certificates before they expire.

How to use AWS Certificate Manager in DevOps

Step 1: Request a certificate

The first step in using ACM is to request a certificate. You can request a certificate using the AWS Management Console, AWS CLI, or AWS SDKs. When you request a certificate, ACM verifies that you own the domain name that you are requesting a certificate for.

Step 2: Deploy the certificate

After you have requested a certificate, you can deploy it to your AWS resources. ACM supports automatic deployment of certificates to resources such as Elastic Load Balancers, CloudFront distributions, and API Gateway endpoints. You can also manually deploy certificates to other resources, such as EC2 instances and S3 buckets.

Step 3: Monitor and renew the certificate

ACM monitors your certificates and automatically renews them before they expire. You can also monitor your certificates using the AWS Management Console or AWS CloudWatch. If a certificate fails to renew, ACM sends you a notification so that you can take action to renew the certificate manually.

Conclusion

In conclusion, AWS Certificate Manager is a powerful tool for managing SSL/TLS certificates in DevOps. It simplifies the process of certificate management by automating many tasks, such as renewing certificates and deploying them to your AWS resources. Additionally, ACM is a cost-effective solution for managing SSL/TLS certificates, and it can help you avoid costly downtime by automatically renewing certificates before they expire. By using ACM, you can ensure that your resources are always secure and that your customers can trust your applications.

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