Nginx Aims To Make Microservices Easier To Deploy

Nginx, which makes the popular Nginx open source web server, said it plans to release an application server this week that’s designed to make microservices-based web applications easier for enterprises to deploy.

The company has also updated its Nginx Plus commercial web server and introduced a new control system.

Microservices refers to a development method in which an application is formed of a number of services, each of which is relatively simple and independent.

The approach is intended to accelerate application development by allowing components to be developed and tested independently of one another. But the technique can add complexity in other ways, in part because it’s so different from older, more monolithic applications, and requires  a different infrastructure to deploy.

Consolidating web apps

Nginx said its upcoming Nginx Unit app server is intended to be a simple and flexible tool that can serve as a base for microservices-based applications, something it argued isn’t currently available.

The tool is to support multiple languages, and multiple versions languages, simultaneously on the same server, helping users to consolidate their apps.

Go, Perl, PHP, Python, and Ruby are supported at launch, with others to follow.

Unit can be reconfigured without interrupting services, Nginx said.  An update coming before the end of the second quarter is to give it support for serving static content, meaning companies don’t need to deploy a separate web server for that material.

The 15th release of the Nginx Plus commercial product  is set for launch on 10 April, and is to  include features for deployments involving load balancing, API gateway and service mesh uses, Nginx said.

Nginx Plus includes features not found in the open source product, such as advanced load balancing and more detailed performance monitoring.

Finally, a new product called Nginx Controller is set for its first release in the second quarter.

At launch the tool is to allow users to monitor and manage all their Nginx Plus instances from a single point. Later the firm said it plans for Controller to also be capable of managing Nginx Unit instances.

The software is to be available from Nginx’s website.

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