[semi off-topic] SSL Certs in a Distributed App

Rails
1

Hey guys, I’m working on a distributed app at the moment, and have a few
questions regarding SSL certs.

My app will be using entirely SSL communication from the client to the
web
server.

There are two datacenters, A and B, each on a separate IP network
(obviously).

The app will be using subdomains (domain labels) to identify the
customer,
so

first.myapp.com, second.myapp.com, third.myapp.com, etc, etc.

Can I purchase one SSL cert (a wildcard cert) to cover A and B, or do I
need
to go about it a different way? From what I understand, wild card certs
will work across multiple machines, but I would like to get some
confirmation of my strategy.

Thanks so much,

Michael

2

Michael,

Yes, wildcard certificates can work across multiple machines.

If you don’t care about the brand name on the certificate, take a look
at the ones from RapidSSL. We use them ourselves for in-house stuff.
$199/year.

GoDaddy also offers the same product, with larger discounts for
multi-year purchases:
http://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/ssl/ssl.asp

Pay close attention to the details. Some wildcard certificates in the
market only allow multiple subdomains per server and you have to pay
an additional fee per each additional server in use.

For example, DigiCert sells the same product as RapidSSL for the
inexpensive wildcard offering… except DigiCert charges $450/yr. Both
provide unlimited subdomains on a single domain, on unlimited servers.

  • Daniel
3

Davoice - thank you so much for the advice. I think that this gets me
what I need.