A Practical Guide to Navigating the 47-Day Certificate Era in Modern Infrastructure

Read full article here: https://www.akeyless.io/blog/preparing-for-the-47-day-certificate-era-how-akeyless-helps-you-stay-compliant-and-secure/?utm_source=nhimg

The global TLS ecosystem is entering its most transformative period in over a decade. The CA/Browser Forum (CA/B Forum)—the standards body governing TLS and SSL certificates—has approved Ballot SC-081v3, requiring certificate lifetimes to shrink from today’s 398 days to just 47 days by March 2029.

This change marks the beginning of a new operational reality for enterprises. Certificate management can no longer rely on manual processes, spreadsheets, or human follow-up. To remain compliant, avoid outages, and maintain cryptographic trust, organizations must adopt continuous automation and crypto-agility.

Akeyless provides the platform built for this new era.
With a Zero-Knowledge Certificate Lifecycle Management (CLM) and PKI-as-a-Service solution, Akeyless automates issuance, renewal, rotation, and policy enforcement—while ensuring private keys never leave customer control.

The TLS Landscape Is Changing Faster Than Most Teams Realize

TLS certificate lifetimes have steadily shortened over the years:

• Originally: 5 years
• Reduced: 825 days
• Reduced again: 398 days
• Now moving to: 47 days by 2029

The 47-day lifespan is the most significant reduction yet, designed to strengthen global cryptographic hygiene. Shorter certificate validity:

• Forces more frequent key rotations
• Limits exposure during a key compromise
• Reduces the impact of CA mis-issuance
• Encourages organizations to adopt automated certificate governance

But the operational burden is enormous. A 47-day lifetime means:

Enterprises must renew and redeploy certificates nearly 8× more frequently than today.

Without automation, this translates into:

• Increased risk of outages
• Higher likelihood of human error
• Compliance violations
• Unmanageable operational overhead

Manual certificate management is no longer viable.

What the 47-Day Readiness Window Means for Enterprises

Although the mandate becomes official in 2029, several Certificate Authorities—including GlobalSign and ZeroSSL—are already aligning their systems with shorter lifecycle expectations.

This introduces a new operational concept:
The 47-day readiness window.

This window accounts for:

• Validation checks
• CSR generation
• Approval cycles
• Deployment across distributed systems
• Certificate propagation delays

Enterprises must now demonstrate the ability to renew, validate, and deploy certificates reliably within this compressed timeframe—continuously.

To succeed, organizations need platforms capable of policy-driven, hands-off automation across their entire digital environment.

Akeyless: The Foundation for Automated, Compliant Certificate Lifecycle Management

Akeyless delivers a unified, SaaS-based Certificate Lifecycle Management (CLM) and PKI-as-a-Service platform with Zero-Knowledge security at its core. It automates the entire certificate lifecycle while ensuring that cryptographic material remains under customer ownership at all times.

Akeyless enables enterprises to achieve:

• Fully automated issuance and renewal
• Policy-driven certificate rotation
• Strong private key protection
• Centralized visibility and governance
• Continuous CA/B Forum compliance
• Unified secrets, keys, and certificates management

Automated Certificate Issuance and Renewal Across All Environments

Akeyless integrates with major public and private CAs—including GlobalSign, ZeroSSL, and internal enterprise CAs—to automate certificate operations end-to-end.

This includes:

• Automatic issuance and reissuance
• API-based deployments
• Integration with Kubernetes ingress controllers
• Automated updates to load balancers and reverse proxies
• Scheduled renewals and policy enforcement

By removing manual touchpoints, Akeyless virtually eliminates outages caused by expired certificates and ensures continuous alignment with CA/B Forum SC-081v3.

Zero-Knowledge Key Protection with Distributed Fragments Cryptography (DFC™)

Security is a foundational requirement in the short-lived certificate era. Akeyless’s patented Distributed Fragments Cryptography (DFC™) ensures:

• Private keys are never stored in full
• Keys are never transmitted
• Keys cannot be reconstructed by Akeyless or any third party
• Fragments are distributed across multiple secure regions
• Zero single point of compromise exists

This Zero-Knowledge design exceeds CA/B Forum best practices and aligns with FIPS 140-2 expectations for cryptographic integrity.

Policy-Driven Rotation and Dynamic Secrets

Akeyless allows admins to define advanced rotation policies such as:

• "Renew the certificate 10 days before expiration"
• "Auto-restart services when a new certificate is deployed"
• "Trigger downstream automation workflows"
• "Notify specific teams when rotation completes"

This removes the risk of manual oversight and ensures that every certificate remains compliant and current.

Full Auditability and Continuous Compliance Reporting

Every certificate request, issuance, renewal, or revocation is logged in Akeyless’s immutable audit trail. Logs integrate directly with SIEM platforms such as:

• Splunk
• Datadog
• Azure Sentinel

This provides complete visibility and enables organizations to demonstrate:

• Adherence to CA/B Forum Baseline Requirements
• Enforcement of internal PKI policies
• Evidence-based compliance for audits and assessments

Unified Secrets and Certificate Management in One Platform

Unlike traditional CLM tools that treat certificates as isolated assets, Akeyless unifies:

• TLS certificates
• SSH keys
• API tokens
• machine credentials
• service identities

This reduces fragmentation, eliminates “shadow certificates,” strengthens governance, and supports enterprise-wide automation at scale.

Future-Ready Security for a Short-Lived Certificate World

The move to 47-day certificates signals a broader shift toward:

• Ephemeral trust
• Rapid identity rotation
• Automated cryptographic refresh
• Machine identity at cloud scale

Organizations that modernize now will be better positioned to maintain resilience, reduce risk, and meet emerging security and compliance expectations.

Akeyless provides the automation, Zero-Knowledge security, and visibility needed to thrive in this environment.

Key Takeaways

• CA/B Forum Ballot SC-081v3 reduces TLS certificate lifetimes to 47 days by 2029.
• Manual certificate management is becoming obsolete.
• Automation, crypto-agility, and Zero-Knowledge key protection are now mandatory.
• Akeyless provides CLM + PKI-as-a-Service with full automation, auditability, and integration across all major CAs.
• Enterprises can eliminate outages, strengthen compliance, and future-proof their certificate strategy.

The Bottom Line

The 47-day mandate is a defining moment for enterprise certificate management. Organizations that invest today in automation, Zero-Knowledge key protection, and lifecycle governance will reduce operational risk, strengthen security, and maintain compliance with evolving CA/B Forum requirements.

Akeyless delivers the platform built for this future—secure, automated, and designed for the demands of the short-lived certificate era.