Use Cases
This page is intended to give you an overview of common use cases and scenarios our clients leverage SCEPman as cloud-CA for. While we cannot provide support for the intricacies of every vendor solution, we hope this overview helps you to quickly assess whether SCEPman could be a fit for your scenario, too - without overwhelming you with less common or even exotic use-cases. If you are unsure, just drop us a question.
Secure WiFi and Network Access
Certificates issued by SCEPman are widely used for the purpose of certificate-based network authentication (802.1X / EAP-TLS) for WiFi, Wired/LAN and VPN, typically along with a network access control (NAC) service that speaks the RADIUS or RadSec protocol. Such services commonly are
Aruba ClearPass
Cisco ISE / Cisco ASA
Azure VPN Gateway / Azure AlwaysOn VPN
Fortinet FortiGate
Palo Alto GlobalProtect
In addition to typical user-centric client devices such as laptops, PCs or Macs, kiosk devices such as point of sales or self-checkout systems, scanner/barcode guns or customer terminals are often equipped with certificates from SCEPman for secure network authentication.
Certificate-based Authentication
You can enrol user authentication certificates with SCEPman for TLS client authentication. This allows authentication to web sites or services such as
Internal web applications
Microsoft 365
Exchange Online
Azure Active Directory (AAD) / Azure CBA (including CRL support) as, e.g. required by NIST 800-63, Rev. 4
Other cloud services
Remote Desktop connections
AVD
Windows server administration
MDM Solutions
To automate the deployment of relevant configuration profiles and to keep certificates up to date (auto-renewal), we recommend to use SCEPman along with an MDM solution. While SCEPman natively integrates with Microsoft Endpoint Manager/Intune and Jamf Pro, our customers have successfully deployed SCEPman along with other MDM solutions.
Below table provides an overview of the most commonly used MDM solutions and indicates how/if certificate revocation is possible.
| MDM Solution | Supported Platforms | Issuance & Auto-renewal | Automatic Revocation | Manual Revocation | Links |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Windows macOS iOS iPadOS Android Ubuntu | ☑️ | ☑️ | ☑️ | ||
macOS iOS iPadOS | ☑️ | ☑️ | ☑️ | ||
ChromeOS Android | ☑️ | ☑️* | ☑️ | ||
macOS iOS | ☑️ (no auto-renew) | ☑️ | |||
iOS iPadOS | ☑️ | ☑️ | |||
Windows macOS iOS iPadOS Android Ubuntu | ☑️ | ☑️ | |||
macOS iOS iPadOS | ☑️ | ☑️* | ☑️ |
*: Only works with user-type certificates if the user-objects are synced from Microsoft Entra ID (Azure AD).
On-premises to Cloud Migration
Since SCEPman is a cloud-native general purpose CA, many of our clients who migrate their infrastructure into the cloud use SCEPman to replace their on-prem Microsoft PKI/AD CS and NDES. Generally, this is possible, as long as the devices that shall receive certificates are hybrid- or full-Azure-AD-joined.
IoT Devices
SCEPman can be utilized to supply certificates to IoT devices. Therefore, SCEPman supports an ECC CA allowing performance- and energy-optimized cryptographic algorithms on devices with limited computational resources or on devices relying on battery power. SCEPman's flexibility supports issuing certificates with long validity periods allowing a long-term offline operation without the need to renew certificates regularly. Furthermore, certificates can be enrolled on an assembly line in a convenient way by leveraging SCEPman's REST API with Microsoft Entra ID (Azure AD)-based authentication.
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