VMware, Inc.
DISTRIBUTED MANAGEMENT AND INSTALLATION OF DIGITAL CERTIFICATES ON A CLUSTER FOR AUTHENTICATION WITH AN EXTERNAL KEY MANAGEMENT SERVICE

Abstract:

Hosts in a cluster in a virtualized computing environment bypass a management layer when communicating with an external key management service (KMS). One of the hosts is configured with KMS configuration information (including digital certificate information) that enables the host to directly communicate with the KMS via a secure communication connection, instead of communicating with the KMS via the management layer. This KMS configuration information is replicated in a distributed manner from the host to the other hosts in the cluster, thereby enabling the other hosts in the cluster to also directly and independently communicate with the KMS to obtain encryption keys to perform cryptographic operations.