Are you working with CA signed certificates in your vSphere environment? You might want to check out these recently published KB articles. They will definitely help understanding the whole process around installing and configuring them.
- Configuring CA signed certificates for VMware vCenter Server 5.0.x
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2015421 - Configuring certificates signed by a Certificate Authority (CA) for vCenter Server Appliance 5.1
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2036744 - Configuring CA signed SSL certificates for vSphere Update Manager in vCenter 5.1
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2037581 - Creating certificate requests and certificates for the vCenter 5.1 components
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2037432 - Configuring CA signed SSL certificates for vCenter SSO in vCenter 5.1
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2035011 - Configuring CA signed SSL certificates for the Web Client and Log Browser in vCenter 5.1
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2035010 - Configuring CA signed SSL certificates for the Inventory service in vCenter 5.1
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2035009 - Configuring OpenSSL for installation and configuration of CA signed certificates in the vSphere environment
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2015387 - Configuring CA signed certificates for ESXi 5.x hosts
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2015499 - Configuring CA signed certificates for vCenter 5.1
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2035005 - Implementing CA signed SSL certificates with vSphere 5.0
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2015383 - Implementing CA signed SSL certificates with vSphere 5.1
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2034833
