C H A P T E R  11

SSL Load Balancing

This chapter on SSL load balancing aims to provide you with an understanding of

• SSL and TLS: what they are and what they do.
• The advantages and disadvantages of encryption.
• What public-key cryptography is and how it relates to encryption online.
• Why there is a need for TLS load balancing.
• How to load balance a TLS connection.

TLS is an important part of the infrastructure of the Internet. And with the ever-increasing focus on security and privacy it is essential to be able to provide this for your users while minimizing the impact to your web site. After all, what good is a web site that is so secure you can't use it?

This chapter will provide you with a good working knowledge of SSL so that you can offer security and privacy to your users. You'll also learn how to configure a SSL system to negate some of the performance impacts of providing SSL to your user base.