Start a conversation about the performance of SSL, and add a few technical types to the mix and ask the question: "Will SSL slow down my server?" Now stand back and watch the fireworks!

The answer is YES and the answer is NO. Or in other words, your mileage may vary.

The good news is that the client has NO worries in today's standard about performance; it is handled quite well. The SSL session is established between machines (your client and the target server) and operates on the Transport Layer. With that said, the load can be significant on the server. In some cases, an improperly configured server or an overloaded (underpowered) server could crash.

If you think through it, the transport layer is key to the protocol (TLS or Transport Layer Security). Thus the setup, handling, and teardown of the sessions will tax the network cards of the machine.

If you are running a server with a very high load, you will need to take that into consideration.

Here are a few tips...