Web server load management with adaptive SSL and admission control mechanism

Abstract

Today internet based e-commerce has become a trend and business necessity. Security of online e-commerce over the Internet is provided through Secure Sockets Layer / Transport Layer Security (SSL/TLS). The SSL/TLS uses public key cryptographic algorithms which are computational intensive due to the modular multiplications. Therefore, SSL/TLS servers often become overloaded while performing public key decryptions when the simultaneous requests increase rapidly. Overload can lead e-commerce applications to considerable revenue losses, response times may grow to unacceptable levels and as a result the server may saturate even crash. So load management of SSL/TLS web server is a critical issue in e-commerce. The proposed work in this paper is to manage load on the server by applying Adaptive SSL policy and session handling mechanism. This policy is self-adaptive security, which offers great potential in providing timely and fine grained security control on server, by runtime adaptation of cryptographic algorithm. The implementation results in more efficient system with better throughput and response time.