Summary:
- Reduce SSL outages by: (1) Discovering and cataloging all certificates across your entire infrastructure automatically (2) Implementing automated certificate renewal and provisioning to eliminate manual errors, (3) Setting up multi-stage expiration alerts and automated workflows, and (4) Maintaining complete certificate inventory visibility through automated discovery tools. Organizations using certificate lifecycle management platforms like AppViewX to eliminate certificate-related downtime completely.
- SSL outages are a preventable problem. Organizations that implement automated certificate lifecycle management to eliminate outage incidents like PacificSource did in their recently publicized automation initiative.
- Enterprises should implement complete certificate visibility, continuous monitoring and automated policy-based renewals.
- With certificate lifespans decreasing to 47 days by 2029 (CA/Browser Forum Ballot SC-081v3), enterprises managing thousands of certificates across hybrid environments face an impossible task. Manual tracking inevitably leads to missed expirations that trigger outages in critical applications and APIs, often at the worst possible moment.
Considering it takes at least 5 hours to remediate a certificate-related outage, reduction in the incident numbers of outages should be a top priority for any enterprise.
In this guide, we’ll dive into the root causes of SSL or TLS certificate outages, proven strategies to prevent expiration-related downtime, best practices for automated monitoring and renewal, and how to build a resilient certificate management system that scales with your infrastructure.
What are SSL outages and why do they matter?
An SSL or TLS certificate outage occurs when a digital certificate fails, preventing secure encrypted connections between users and your applications. When certificates expire, are misconfigured, or become invalid, browsers display security warnings, APIs reject connections, and critical services become inaccessible and damage trust.
What users may experience:
- Red warning screens stating “Your connection is not private”
- Blocked access to websites and applications
- Failed API calls and broken integrations
- Crashed mobile app
Common triggers include:
- Expired certificates, leading cause of certificate-related outages, accounting for 81% of outages organizations in the past year
- Installation errors, including misconfigured certificates or incorrect server settings
- Domain mismatches in which the certificate doesn’t match the domain name being accessed
- Broken certificate chains with missing or incorrect intermediate certificates
- Certificate revocations due to compromised or invalidated certificates
How can you prevent SSL certificate expiration?
It is important to understand why manual certificate tracking fails at scale for enterprises. There was once a time when certificates had a 3 year expiration date. In those days, it was feasible to do manual certificate tracking and renewals.
However, as organizations manage thousands of certificates and certificate visibility remains low (up to 64% of organizations are unaware of the number of certificates deployed), enterprises are not ready for the upcoming 47-day expiration mandate. Manual tracking and remediation is a challenge now and will become unfeasible in the next year, becoming a recipe for outages and lost revenue.
Implementing automated certificate renewal and provisioning
Certificate lifecycle automation eliminates manual bottlenecks that cause outages. Modern platforms monitor expiration dates and trigger renewal workflows at configurable thresholds (30/60/90 days), then automatically:
- Reuse existing keys or generate certificate signing requests (CSRs)
- Submit to the appropriate Certificate Authority
- Validate domain ownership
- Retrieve and deploy issued certificates
- Verify installation and log all actions
Key automation capabilities:
ACME Protocol Integration: The Automated Certificate Management Environment (ACME) protocol enables zero-touch certificate issuance, automated domain validation, and seamless integration with Let’s Encrypt and commercial CAs.
Multi-CA Support: Enterprise solutions integrate with multiple Certificate Authorities, both public and private PKI, allowing flexible CA routing and migration without service disruption.
Self-Service Provisioning: DevOps and application teams can request certificates via self-service portals or APIs while security maintains policy control, reducing IT bottlenecks and ensuring compliance.
The impact: Organizations implementing automation reduce manual certificate work by up to 90% and cut certificate-related downtime from 20-30 hours per year to under 2 hours.
How does AppViewX eliminate certificate blind spots?
AppViewX is a comprehensive certificate lifecycle management platform designed to eliminate the visibility gaps and manual processes that cause outages.
Complete infrastructure discovery:
AVX ONE automatically discovers certificates across 100+ platforms and technologies, including:
- Public and private cloud environments (AWS, Azure, GCP)
- Load balancers (F5, Citrix ADC, A10, Kemp
- Web servers and application servers
- Kubernetes and container orchestration platforms
- API gateways and service meshes
Unlike point solutions that require agents or complex integrations, AppViewX uses agentless discovery to provide immediate visibility without infrastructure changes.
| Challenge | How AppViewX Solves It | Business Impact |
| Certificate blind spots | Automated discovery across 100+ platforms with centralized dashboard | Complete visibility into certificate inventory |
| Manual renewal processes | Automated policy-based workflows with multi-stage alerts (30/60/90 days) | 97% reduction in manual certificate tasks |
| Certificate-related outages | Zero-touch renewals and automated deployment and application binding | Elimination of certificate outages |
| CA vendor lock-in | Multi-CA orchestration (public + private PKI) | Vendor flexibility and seamless migration |
| DevOps bottlenecks | Self-service portal with policy enforcement | Faster certificate deployments without compromising security |
| Future cryptographic changes | Bulk replacement and algorithm migration capabilities | Ready for 47-day lifespans and post-quantum cryptography |
Stop certificate outages before they blindside you
Don’t wait for the next $5,600-per-minute outage or 47-day certificate lifespan mandates to realize your certificate management needs automation.
See how AppViewX helps enterprises:
- Eliminate certificate-related outages
- Reduce manual certificate work by 97%
- Gain complete visibility across 100+ platforms
- Automate renewals with zero-touch workflows
- Prepare for post-quantum cryptography
Get a personalized demo and see how AppViewX can transform your certificate operations from reactive firefighting to proactive automation.
Frequently asked questions (FAQs):
What causes most SSL certificate outages?
Expired certificates cause the majority of SSL outages, with most organizations experiencing at least one certificate-related outage in the past year. Other common causes include misconfigured certificates during installation, domain name mismatches, broken certificate chains, and lack of visibility into certificate inventory.
Can SSL certificate management be automated?
Yes, SSL certificate management can and must be automated, especially as certificate lifespans shrink to 47-day intervals by 2029 and exponentially increase the workload associated with monitoring and managing them. Certificate lifecycle management automation platforms do the heavy lifting of keeping an always current inventory of certificates, flagging pending expirations, automating renewals, provisioning, and monitoring across an entire IT infrastructure.