Thanks for your input Amar. I think I'm gonna recommend we get the SSL accelerator, because the web forms themselves will consume enough CPU usage.

As for the load balancing machines, I think I'm going to pass on that - unless somebody can convince me that they have definite advantages over using the built-in load balancing software of Apache/Jserv.

One other question: is 40-bit encryption good enough for our site (we are a university)? I thought we should go with 128-bit, but a co-worker says that is really only needed for banks and such.

Thanks again,
Mandy