Certificate management extends MIM functionality by adding management policy to a driven workflow that enables the complete life cycle of initial enrollment, duplication, and the revocation of user-based certificates. Some smart card features include offline unblocking, duplicating cards, and recovering a certificate from a lost card.
The concept of this policy is driven by a profile template within the CM application. Profile templates are stored in Active Directory, which means the application already has a built-in redundancy. CM is based on the idea that the product will proxy, or be the middle man, to make a request to and get one from CA. CM performs its functions with user agents that encrypt and decrypt its communications.
When discussing PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) and smart cards, you usually need to have some discussion about the level of assurance you would like for the identities secured by your PKI. For basic insight on PKI and assurance, take...