Can I have SSL for peer authentication only? (and not for data encryption)

[Urjit Gokhale]

Hi all,   I am planning to use SSL for the communication between my client and server. The idea is to use SSL *mainly* for peer authentication and validation (Both server and client authentication by means of certificates). Regarding the data encryption, I would like to have it as an optional feature.   The motivation behind this desirable feature is that in a particular environment, I am not really worried about the data, but the client talking to my server. I would like to give up on encryption in favor of performance.   So the questions are: 1) Is it possible to use SSL only for the sake of peer authentication + validation and transfer un-encrypted data over this channel ?   2) Would sacrificing on encryption *really* improve the performance ?   Thanks,   ~ Urjit   PS: This is my first mail to this list. So, in case, you think that my questions are out of the scope of this group, or you know of some other group which can yield me better answers, could you please point me to such groups ?