what is ssl session resumption

• When a client and server establish an SSL connection for the first time they need to establish ashared key called the master_secret. The master_secret is then used to create all the bulk encryption keys used to protect the traffic. The master_secret is almost invariably established using one of two public key algorithms: RSA or Diffie-Hellman (DH). Unfortunately, both of these algorithms are quite slow. In order to improve performance, SSL contains a "session resumption" feature that allows a client/server pair to skip this time consuming step if they have already established a master_secret in a previous connection. (from Eric Rescorla's article http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/5487)

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