An overview of the SSL protocol and how it is implemented in the system.
Summary
Processing secure SSL transactions can consume a large portion of a Web server's CPU capacity, degrading performance and increasing end-user response times. SSL acceleration transparently improves the performance of Web sites that conduct SSL transactions. The SSL protocol works seamlessly with a variety of HTTP and TCP data types, and provides a secure channel for these data transactions.
A system configured with SSL acceleration is placed in front of a Web server, where it intercepts SSL transactions on behalf of the server, processes the SSL transactions, applies the system's load balancing and content switching policies, then relays the transactions to the servers.
The following figure shows an implementation of the SSL feature. 
SSL entity diagram
To configure SSL, you must first create an SSL virtual server and services on the system. Then, you must bind a valid SSL certificate and the configured services to the SSL virtual server.
An SSL virtual server intercepts incoming encrypted traffic and decrypts it using the certificate bound to the virtual server. The SSL virtual server then forwards the decrpyted data to the other entities on the system for appropriate processing. SSL services are a virtual representation of the physical servers on the internal network that offload SSL processing to the system..
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