A University Network in Latin America Secures Its Student and Research Systems from Certificate-Related Disruptions with eMudhra CertiNext

Client Overview

The organisation is a private university network operating three campuses across two Latin American countries, with a combined student population of around 22,000 and a faculty and administrative workforce of approximately 1,400. The network operates a student information system, a learning management system, library databases, research collaboration platforms, and administrative systems — all of which depend on valid SSL/TLS certificates to operate securely and maintain browser trust for students and staff accessing them remotely.

The Challenge

The university network's IT department managed certificates across three campuses, with each campus historically operating its own IT infrastructure. After a consolidation initiative brought the core systems under central management, the IT team discovered that certificate management practices varied significantly across campuses — some were well maintained, others entirely reactive. During one semester, the learning management system at the newest campus displayed a browser security warning to students for several days because a certificate had expired without the central IT team being aware of it. Student complaints reached the university's academic leadership. The IT team also found that certificates for the research collaboration platform — used by faculty across both countries — were tracked on a spreadsheet that had not been updated in over a year.

“Students seeing a security warning on the learning management system at the start of a semester is not a good impression. We had three campuses with three different approaches to certificate management and we needed to consolidate that.”
— Director of Information Technology

The Solution

eMudhra deployed CertiNext to unify certificate management across all three campuses under a single platform. A discovery scan identified 130 certificates across the student information system, learning management system, library platforms, research tools, and administrative systems. Campus-specific renewal workflows were configured, with campus IT coordinators notified at 60 and 30 days before expiry and the central IT director notified for any certificate on systems used across multiple campuses. The research collaboration platform certificates were classified as high priority given their cross-campus and cross-country dependencies, with renewal triggers set at 90 days. A private CA was deployed for internal administrative system certificates, covering connections between campus administrative systems that did not require external trust. The CertiNext dashboard gave the central IT director a single view across all three campuses for the first time.

Results

The research platform certificate and several other near-expiry certificates were renewed in the first two weeks. In the academic year following deployment, the university recorded no browser security warnings or certificate-related system access issues on any campus. The IT consolidation programme cited the CertiNext deployment as one of its tangible improvements to student and faculty experience.