In partnership with Janet, emPSN is able to offer SSL Certificates which are Organisation Validated (OV). OV certificates are typically used for standard HTTPS/SSL type services supplied with a Common Name CN. OV certificates can also have multiple Subject Alternative Names SANs, permitting the use of multiple named systems. emPSN are able to obtain OV certificates from Janet on your behalf on the basis that the domains being used are registered in the school’s name, or the school’s organisational name.
Other certificates such as Extended Validation (EV) are available from the Janet service but at present these are not available to schools.
There is a cost of £82 for a certificate for a 1-year duration, providing a discount of around 20% to that of the commercial market. There will be a supplementary charge for SANs depending on the number of names used:
- £90 for certificates with 4 or less domains (maximum 1 CN + 3 SANs)
- £137 for certificates with 5 but less than 10 domains (max 1 CN + 8 SANs)
- £232 for certificates with 10 but less than 20 domains (max 1 CN + 18 SANs)
- £312 for certificates with 20 but less than 30 domains (max 1 CN + 28 SANs)
- £407 credits for certificates with 30 up to 50 domains (max 1 CN + 49 SANs)
- £148 for Wildcard Certificates
What is an Organisation Validated Certificate
At a glance
- Displays certificate owners’ legal name to visitors
- Supports up 49 additional domains in SAN fields
- Can be used in Microsoft’s unified communications environments, including Exchange
- Certificate duration of 1-year
Further detail
These certificates provide single domain and multi-domain SSL encryption. They offer high-level protection of 128/256 bit encryption and are 2048-bit ready, securing the certificate.
These certificates are organisation validated (OV) which means that the organisation to which this certificate has been issued to has been verified as a legal organisation.
How is your Domain Validated
All domains will need to be validated using one of the following methods:
- The domain owner adds a random number (provided by Jisc through emPSN) to the TXT field of the domain’s DNS record.
- Respond to an email (sent by Jisc) to the registrant contact email address registered against the domain.
Once a domain has been validated it will remain so for 13 months, so you do not have to do this every time you submit a certificate request. If you are looking at certificates and would like to validate in advance please email us on – Certificate@empsn.org.uk – otherwise we will validate during the issue process.
How can I use this service
To use the service we will require you to supply the following information:
- A purchase order for the certificate.
- A certificate request in the form of a CSR file or a copy of the CSR information – if you are unsure how to do this information and help is available here – https://support.comodo.com/index.php and search for ‘CSR Generation’
- To produce the certificate emPSN also need the contact details of the contact / technical contact who should receive the certificate.
Domain Validation
Domain validation will take the form of a DNS TXT Marker – adding a random number/sequence (provided by emPSN/Jisc) to the TXT field of the domains DNS record.
How can I get some help
The link to the Janet website for more information on certificate types is https://community.ja.net/library/janet-services-documentation/certificate-types and there are different lead times depending on which certificate you choose.
Creating Certificate Requests (CSR) – if you are unsure how to do this information and help is available here – https://help.sectigostore.com/support/solutions/folders/22000168634
To contact emPSN about purchasing a certificate please email Certificate@empsn.org.uk
