Author: Sagar Pawar

When you publish your website, you are always a bit concerned about its security of it. From a security point of view, an SSL certificate plays a major role to authenticate the identity of the website. SSL stands for Secure Socket Layer, which creates a secure tunnel between the web server and the client browser to keep online transactions private. In another way, it prevents hackers from reading or modifying information transferred between two systems. It is always recommended to check the padlock next to the website you are visiting. If it exists means visiting the website is secure to connect.

I wrote another article on SSL certificates. This article describes how to get a free SSL certificate by using Window Server CA. You can use this for internal communication in a lower environment. 

You work for any software deployment project, you deploy code in multiple environments and test it.  You test the site with HTTP, not HTTPS. Why? you need an SSL certificate for it. Getting a certificate for a lower environment could be difficult considering the cost. There is a way by which you can get a wildcard certificate and configure it with your website.

You can implement a PKI solution by using the AD CS (Active Directory Certificate Service) Windows Server role. 

In any organization, it is a best security practice to have an SSL certificate installed on servers, applications, and databases. To get an SSL certificate, the first step is to have or build a Certificate Authority (CA). SSL Certificates and CA make communication secure between client and server or application. If you do not have a CA ready internally or externally, you can not issue the certificate to any internal or external application. In that case, the risk of the application or server is at stake, as anybody can prove its identity and read critical data to harm the system. The CA is responsible for attesting to the identity of users, computers, and organizations. The CA authenticates an entity and assures the identity by issuing a digitally signed certificate.

This article will focus on how to set up an internal CA for your organization. This provides better control to IT Admin over implementation and certificate life cycle management. You can use any number of SSL certificates free of cost. We will use a Windows server for it.

Today, I am going to share the steps for the Windows File server cluster in Azure. It is not very new, but when you are on the Azure cloud, things might change from the configuration side. You can achieve better resiliency and high availability with a shared disk and storage account.

Let’s see how you can achieve it step-by-step in this Windows file server cluster architecture diagram: