Keyfactor Command
Overview
Keyfactor Command is a certificate lifecycle automation platform that provides centralised discovery, inventory, management, and automation of X.509 certificates and keys across on-premises, cloud, DevOps, and IoT environments. The platform supports multi-CA environments — including both internal and public certificate authorities — with workflows, alerts, reporting, and integrations to automate issuance, renewal, and policy enforcement from a single control plane.
Command can be deployed as SaaS (Certificate Lifecycle Automation as a Service), on-premises software, within Kubernetes clusters, or combined with fully managed PKI as PKI as a Service. It also supports post-quantum and hybrid certificates, providing visibility and management for organisations preparing for the cryptographic transition ahead.
Unsung is a Keyfactor Silver Partner with over five years of experience implementing Command for UK government and enterprise customers. We have delivered Command deployments alongside EJBCA and SignServer in greenfield PKI build projects and as standalone certificate lifecycle management implementations over existing CA infrastructure.
The Challenge
Most organisations have far more certificates than they realise. Certificates are issued by multiple internal and public CAs, deployed across servers, load balancers, cloud workloads, containers, network devices, and IoT endpoints. Without centralised visibility, security teams rely on spreadsheets, disparate CA-specific tools, or hope to track certificate expiry dates and compliance status.
The consequences of this lack of visibility are well documented: unexpected certificate expiry causes service outages, non-compliant certificates create security vulnerabilities, and manual renewal processes consume operational time that does not scale. With TLS certificate lifetimes reducing to 47 days by 2029, organisations that rely on manual processes face an exponential increase in certificate management workload. The volume and velocity of certificate operations will exceed what human-driven processes can sustain.
Organisations need a platform that discovers every certificate across their estate, provides a single view of their certificate inventory regardless of issuing CA, automates the renewal and provisioning lifecycle, and enforces consistent policies across all environments.
What It Does
Command addresses these challenges through four core capabilities: discovery, inventory management, automation, and governance.
Discovery identifies certificates across the estate using multiple methods including real-time CA synchronisation, network endpoint scanning, and agent-based or agentless discovery of key and certificate stores. This ensures that certificates issued by any CA — internal Microsoft ADCS, EJBCA, public CAs, or cloud-native certificate services — are captured in a single inventory. Command also discovers post-quantum and hybrid certificates, providing early visibility as organisations begin cryptographic transition planning.
Inventory management provides a centralised dashboard where certificates can be searched, filtered, and organised using custom metadata tags. Teams can group certificates into logical collections by application, environment, owner, or any other organisational scheme, making it straightforward to identify and manage certificates relevant to specific teams or compliance requirements.
Automation eliminates manual certificate operations through Keyfactor Orchestrators and pre-built integrations. Certificates can be automatically renewed and provisioned to network endpoints, load balancers, servers, and cloud workloads with zero-touch workflows. Self-service enrolment via an intuitive portal or REST API enables developers and application owners to obtain security-approved certificates without raising tickets or navigating complex processes. Over 100 pre-built integrations connect Command to server infrastructure, cloud platforms, DevOps tools, and security ecosystems.
Governance capabilities ensure consistent certificate policies across the organisation. Role-based access controls define what users and groups can see and do within the platform. Approval workflows can be required for enrolment and revocation operations. Proactive alerts notify teams of upcoming expiry, non-compliant certificates, or policy violations before they become incidents. Comprehensive audit logging of all certificate and configuration changes supports internal and external compliance reporting, whilst integration with SIEM and ITSM platforms extends alerting into existing operational workflows.
How Unsung Helps
Unsung’s five-year partnership with Keyfactor has given us deep practical experience with Command across a range of deployment scenarios. Our consultants help clients assess their certificate management maturity, design appropriate Command architectures, and implement the platform integrated with their existing CA infrastructure and operational processes. For organisations building new PKI alongside certificate lifecycle management, we deliver Command integrated with EJBCA and SignServer as a complete platform.
Our Certificate Lifecycle Management service provides the advisory framework for Command implementations, helping clients define certificate policies, design automation workflows, and establish the operational processes needed to sustain certificate management at scale. For organisations that want to understand their current certificate estate before committing to a platform, our PKI Health Check provides a baseline assessment that informs the Command implementation scope.
Related Unsung Services
Certificate Lifecycle Management — Advisory and implementation services for enterprise certificate automation.
PKI Design & Build — End-to-end PKI implementation including Command, EJBCA, and SignServer.
PKI Consultancy — Independent advisory on certificate management strategy and platform selection.
PKI Health Check — Assessment of existing certificate estates to inform automation strategy.
PKI Management & Hosting — Managed certificate lifecycle services including ongoing Command operations.
