This guide assumes you have a solid technical understanding of the third-party applications, cryptographic concepts, and basic networking.
Futurex certification process
The Futurex certification process is a rigorous and standardized approach to testing and certifying integrations between third-party applications and Futurex HSMs and key management servers (such as KMES Series 3). The certification process ensures that we fully test and validate third-party application integrations in a lab environment before deploying them in a production environment. Our integration Engineering team implements this process so that you can be confident that third-party applications integrate seamlessly with Futurex HSMs and KMES Series 3 devices and that all operations result in the expected behavior. The certification process involves several steps, including research, testing, troubleshooting, and certification, and is fully documented in an integration guide for each integration. The full process includes the following steps:- Research the third-party application to gain a general understanding of the solution and the protocol it uses to integrate with an HSM or KMS device (such as PKCS #11, Microsoft CNG, JCE, OpenSSL Engine, and KMIP).
- Determine the scope of the third-party application use of the HSM or KMS device, including the specific functionalities it uses (for example, data encryption, key protection, entropy, and so on).
- Install and configure the third-party application in a lab environment, where all testing and validation take place.
- Establish a connection between the third-party application and the Futurex device, which typically involves configuring TLS certificates and creating roles and identities that the third-party application uses to connect and authenticate to the Futurex device.
- Initiate a request from the third-party application to the Futurex device, such as generating keys or certificates, encrypting or decrypting data, or performing other cryptographic functions.
- If any errors occur during the testing process, the Integration Engineering team diagnoses the issues and takes necessary corrective actions. If necessary, the team also documents the errors by creating engineering change requests (ECRs) to ensure all issues are addressed and resolved before certification.
- After any necessary engineering changes have been made, the team performs a new end-to-end test to ensure that all errors are resolved and all operations are successful.
- Certify the integration by creating an integration guide that covers all necessary prerequisites, lists configurations required in both the third-party application and the Futurex device, and provides instructions to test functionality.
Integration guide organization
The typical flow of our integration guides is as follows:- Before you start: Covers supported hardware models, OS versions, third-party software, and other prerequisites.
- Configure the Futurex device: Provides detailed step-by-step instructions on setting up the HSM device for the integration. This includes network setup, loading major keys, configuring policies and permissions, and setting up authentication by using TLS certificates or shared secrets.
- Configure the third-party application: Shows how to configure the application to connect to the Futurex device and use its cryptographic functionalities.
- Test the integration: Provides test cases and expected results to validate that the integration works end-to-end for key use cases properly.
- Troubleshoot common issues: Offers tips for diagnosing and resolving common errors or issues seen with the integration.