All recommendations point to using an HSM, which sounds great operationally. Admittedly, i'm ignorant where HSMs are concerned.
When creating a ServerCredential from an HSM, the example code shows a KeyStore being loaded using the HSM, and then PrivateKeys being loaded from the KeyStore. As i understand it, the whole purpose of the HSM is to secure private keys, i.e. they never leave the HSM. What exactly is this PrivateKey then?
For license serving, the private key is needed to geneate a license, right?
What i'm really asking, is whether or not the HSM is going to be called on every license generation request? Or are the necessary keys cached within the ServerCredential so that license generation is autonomous once the ServerCredential is created?
The implications are whether the HSM is a point of failure after startup and whether the HSM is a scalability limitation to license generation.
Any insight is appreciated.
Thanks.
