Custom Security Applications

You can deploy a variety of public key security solutions with the standard components and features included in the Windows 2000 public key infrastructure. However, if necessary, you also can develop custom applications with Certificate Services to meet special needs.

You might develop custom Policy modules and custom Exit modules to integrate certificate services with legacy databases and third-party directory services. For example, you might develop an application that validates certificate requests from user information that is contained in a legacy database or a third-party directory service.

You might also develop a custom application that issues special types of certificates. For example, you might develop an application that processes electronic documents to generate digital thumbprints of the documents and then store the thumbprints in timestamp certificates. You might maintain these timestamp certificates in a document registry database to provide integrity for the original document contents. When a document is compared to the digital thumbprint in the registry database, any tampering with or modification to the document since it was registered are identified. You might use a document registry like this to provide an online quality assurance audit trail for the products you manufacture and, thus, ensure the integrity of electronic test and certification documentation.

In addition, you might develop a custom certificate enrollment and renewal application with ASP pages. For example, you might modify the standard Certificate Services Web pages to add or delete features. You might also develop custom Web pages that integrate with third-party services or other applications that you develop.

It is recommended that you design and test all custom applications in the lab and in pilot programs before deploying the applications in your production environments. For more information about custom public key security applications with Certificate Services, see the Microsoft Platform SDK link on the Web Resources page at https://windows.microsoft.com/windows2000/reskit/webresources .