Understanding Public-Key Infrastructure: Concepts, Standards, and Deployment Considerations

Mitigating Risk

In all cases, it is simply in the best interest of an organization to mitigate risk as much as possible. Understanding the organization's needs and requirements, both now and in the future, partially accomplishes this.

When it comes to selecting a specific technology vendor(s), a number of things should be considered to help ensure that the selection is as sound as possible, including

• Reputation—What do their existing customers have to say about the vendor?

• Market penetration—How pervasive is the vendor, and what is the estimated market share?

• Longevity—Is the vendor viable from a long-term perspective?

• Cooperation—Is the vendor willing and able to cooperate with the customer, especially if is the vendor knows in advance that some ...