Increasing online security by facilitating the deployment of digital certificates
In January 2025, GÉANT launched the 5th generation of its Trusted Certificate Service (TCS) and will offer this service to NRENs until December 2026.
TCS takes advantage of a bulk purchasing arrangement whereby participating national research and education networking organisations (NRENs) may issue close to unlimited numbers of certificates provided by a commercial CA at a significantly reduced price. TCS can only be used by members of a National Research and Education Network and the local NREN must be signed up to the service.
The TCS service is offered in partnership with HARICA – the Hellenic Academic & Research Institutions Certification Authority.
The five main types of certificates available are:
- SSL certificates – for authenticating servers and establishing secure sessions with end clients.
- Grid certificates – for authenticating Grid hosts and services (IGTF compliant).
- Client certificates – for identifying individual users and securing email communications.
- Code signing certificates – for authenticating software distributed over the internet.
- Document signing certificates – for authenticating documents from Adobe PDF, Microsoft Office, OpenOffice, and LibreOffice.
To find out more about TCS, please contact the TCS Service Owner via the contact form.
At a glance
Users
TCS provides NRENs with cost-effective and easy to use management of digital certificates. Currently, over 30 NRENs benefit from participation in TCS. In order to take advantage of TCS, please contact your local NREN.
Information
More information about TCS can be found on the TCS wiki.