US Patent 10447668 Virtual cryptographic module with load balancer and cryptographic module fleet

A virtual cryptographic module is used to perform cryptographic operations. The virtual cryptographic module may include a fleet of cryptographic modules and a load balancer that determines when a cryptographic module should be added to or removed from the fleet. The fleet size may be adjusted based on detecting a set of conditions that includes the utilization level of the fleet. One or more cryptographic modules of the fleet may be used to fulfill requests to perform cryptographic operations. A cryptographic module may be a hardware security module (“HSM”).