What is Cloud KMS? What's it's purpose/benefit of KMS? Is there a concrete example of a problem I solve using it? How does it work? How do I use it? (AWS KMS, GCP KMS, Azure Key Vault)
Whenever I've tried to read the official docs
https://aws.amazon.com/kms/
https://cloud.google.com/kms/
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/key-vault/key-vault-whatis
I'd never get any useful information out of the official docs, I'd get:
- Generic Explanations:
KMS: Key Management System, we help you centrally manage your encryption keys.
(I got that from the name... but what does that actually mean? I'm not even sure if I have any keys I need to manage. I can't think of a scenario where I'd be using so many encryption keys that I'd need help managing them. Is this some product that's only meant for huge organizations?) - Generic Benefits:
(buzz words you can say about any product aka meaningless for an explanation.)
"fully managed", "central management", "low cost", "auditable", "encryption", "secure", "helps meet compliance regulations", "scalable", "automated", "integrated", "REST API", "highly available", "HSM backed", "protect secrets")
(Ok this might be cool, but wdf does it actually do? How does KMS help me meet compliance regulations, give a concrete example? You help protect secrets? How? I'm already keeping my secrets secret, the name told me to do that... So what are you actually offering? This sounds like it'll add complexity without adding any benefits) - No concrete explanation or concrete examples of KMS benefits/problems that can be solved using KMS:
Whenever I've tried to look deeper I'd either find nothing, or explanations that would go over my head. I need to know a concrete, relatable problem, that KMS helps me solve.