SSL Acceleration Device Offloading Encryption Load
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Solution Overview
Problem
The Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol imposes significant CPU overhead on servers handling multiple secure communication sessions, leading to performance bottlenecks and slowed web transactions due to the computational intensity of encryption and decryption processes.
Innovation Solution
An SSL acceleration device is introduced to intercept and manage SSL communications between clients and servers, offloading encryption and decryption tasks, and implementing a load balancing mechanism to distribute processing loads across multiple servers.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If SSL encryption and decryption is performed directly on the server, then security is maintained, but server performance degrades due to computational intensity
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the SSL encryption and decryption functionality from the server system and places it in a separate network device. This allows the server to offload the computationally intensive cryptographic operations while the dedicated device handles security functions, resolving the contradiction between maintaining security and preserving server performance.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary device positioned between the server and clients that performs SSL processing. This intermediary handles all encryption and decryption operations, acting as a mediator that preserves security requirements while shielding the server from computational overhead.
2Productivity
If multiple SSL sessions are handled by a single server, then resource utilization is improved, but processing bottlenecks increase due to CPU overhead
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the SSL processing function from the server function, creating a dedicated security processing device. This segmentation allows multiple SSL sessions to be handled efficiently by specialized hardware or optimized software in the intermediary device, reducing the time penalty associated with handling multiple concurrent sessions.
3Productivity
If SSL processing is distributed across multiple devices, then load is reduced, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses an intermediary device that maintains session state and manages the complexity of distributed SSL processing. This centralizes the control plane while distributing the data plane processing, achieving load distribution without proportionally increasing system complexity.
Data Source
AI summary
A load balancing SSL acceleration device. The device includes a processor, memory and communications interface. A TCP communications manager capable of interacting with a plurality of client devices and server devices simultaneously is provided, along with a secure communications manager. The apparatus further includes an encryption and decryption engine instructing the processor to encrypt data from a secure communications session and direct it to said second communication session. Still further, the apparatus includes a load balancing engine associating ones of said client devices with ones of said servers for a communications session based on calculated processing loads of each said server. In a further aspect, a method for performing SSL acceleration of data communications between a plurality of customer devices attempting to communicate with an enterprise having a plurality of servers is disclosed.