Skip to Main Content
IBM System Storage Ideas Portal


This portal is to open public enhancement requests against IBM System Storage products. To view all of your ideas submitted to IBM, create and manage groups of Ideas, or create an idea explicitly set to be either visible by all (public) or visible only to you and IBM (private), use the IBM Unified Ideas Portal (https://ideas.ibm.com).


Shape the future of IBM!

We invite you to shape the future of IBM, including product roadmaps, by submitting ideas that matter to you the most. Here's how it works:

Search existing ideas

Start by searching and reviewing ideas and requests to enhance a product or service. Take a look at ideas others have posted, and add a comment, vote, or subscribe to updates on them if they matter to you. If you can't find what you are looking for,

Post your ideas
  1. Post an idea.

  2. Get feedback from the IBM team and other customers to refine your idea.

  3. Follow the idea through the IBM Ideas process.


Specific links you will want to bookmark for future use

Welcome to the IBM Ideas Portal (https://www.ibm.com/ideas) - Use this site to find out additional information and details about the IBM Ideas process and statuses.

IBM Unified Ideas Portal (https://ideas.ibm.com) - Use this site to view all of your ideas, create new ideas for any IBM product, or search for ideas across all of IBM.

ideasibm@us.ibm.com - Use this email to suggest enhancements to the Ideas process or request help from IBM for submitting your Ideas.

Status Future consideration
Workspace IBM DS8000
Created by Guest
Created on Mar 19, 2026

Improve DS8 Communications Certificate Renewal Process

The current Communication Certificate renewal process is lengthy and cumbersome, and as the industry is moving over the next few years to require rotating certificates every 47 days vs just once a year, improving existing workflows as much as possible will be important to reducing administrative overhead. Currently we need to:

  1. Submit a certificate signing request on HMC1
  2. Take that CSR and get it signed by our CA
  3. Download the signed certificate
  4. Import that certificate back into HMC1
  5. HMC1 will then reboot which can take 15-20 minutes before it is 100% ready for use again.
  6. Repeat for HMC2

Would recommend some opportunities for streamlining this process:

  1. Primarily, allow for installation of the new communications certificate without requiring a complete HMC reboot. Most other platforms including IBM offerings allow for certificate renewals with only a momentary restart of the management services.
  2. Allow for importing certificates generated on the CA vs requiring it to be a CSR process.
  3. Allow for the use of a single communications certificate to be installed for each HMC, for example like with the Storwize platforms we don't need a separate certificate for each node in the system even though each one has their own management interface.
  4. Provide automation opportunities to the certificate renewals process, for example via API or Ansible modules.
Idea priority High