A lot of the expensive 12-25k solutions seem limited to 4k SSL connections simultaneously. Loadbalancer.org has a reasonably priced solution for many HTTP requests, but is limited to 2k SSL connections.
For a site as active as mine, will that be enough? Is there a better way to do it than to rely on the load balancer which may or may not have an ASIC SSL off loader co-processor where I can get more than the 4k ceiling for sub 17k machines?
Do they make ASIC SSL cards that can go into a pci-x/express port? (I have not been able to find much even at google). Is there a guideline/recommendation spec for a build your own solution that can be dedicated just to process the SSL encryption/decryption?
We'd be looking for high availability/loadbalancing type solutions. Even if that means we use separate load balancers (in tandem) with reverse proxy boxes cruncing SSL conenctions.
PCI compliance is also a concern, so any suggestions should fall within those guidelines as well.