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

rubyonrails-talk
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](http://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:

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.

Davoice wrote: