Techniques to verify and authenticate resources in a data center computer environment

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium, comprising a plurality of instructions, that when executed by processing circuitry, enable the processing circuitry to:

• retrieve a sled manifest stored in a secure memory of a sled, the sled manifest to include hardware authentication information for multiple physical resources of the sled, the hardware authentication information to include a public key to verify each physical resource of the sled;
• generate a nonce,
• communicate the nonce to a physical resource of the sled,
• receive a signed version of the nonce from the physical resource, the signed version of the nonce signed with a private key of the physical resource, and
• determine whether the physical resource is authentic based in part on the signed version of the nonce and the public key of the physical resource included with the hardware authentication information from the sled manifest.

An apparatus comprising:

• a physical resource of a sled;
• circuitry;
• and
• memory comprising instructions that when executed by the circuitry cause the circuitry to:
• receive a nonce from a pod management controller,
• sign the nonce with a private key of a keypair,
• send the signed nonce to the pod management controller, the pod management controller to determine whether the physical resource is authentic based in part on the signed nonce and a public key of the keypair included with hardware authentication information from a sled manifest associated with the sled, the sled manifest stored in a secure memory of the sled.