vSphere 6 Certificate Authority

VMware Certificate Authority (VMCA) is a component in the Platform Services Controller (PSC) of vSphere 6 vCenter Virtual Server Appliance (VCSA).

What does VMCA do?

• issues certificates for
  • VMware solution users
  • machine certificates for machines on which services are running
  • ESXi host certificates when adding the ESXi host to vCenter Server
• you don’t have to use VMCA as the certificate authority and certificate signer

What does VMware Endpoint Certificate Store (VECS) do?

• a local (client-side) repository for certificates, private keys, and other certificate information
• you must use VECS to store all vCenter certificates and keys
• ESXi certificates are stored locally on each host and not in VECS

Certificate Management

• vSphere 6 ships with a new Certificate Manager tool for vCenter for Windows and VCSA