NGINX has released new enhancements to the NGINX Application Platform - including new releases of NGINX Plus, NGINX Controller, and NGINX Unit. These new releases aim to improve NGINX’s solution in the application delivery controller (ADC) market, as well as introduce new solutions in the API management and service mesh markets. NGINX provides a single platform to compete in a combined market projected to be worth $5.7B in 2019.
The three new releases – NGINX Plus R16, NGINX Controller 2.0, and NGINX Unit 1.4 - represent the most substantial set of updates to the Application Platform yet. Updates leverage the modular architecture of NGINX Controller and enable enterprises to provide the right workflows to the right teams managing NGINX Plus in the data plane. These capabilities further simplify application infrastructures by consolidating application delivery, API management, and service mesh management into a single solution – accelerating the journey to microservices.
The three product releases unlock five new capabilities:
- NGINX Controller 2.0 enhances Load Balancer Module. NGINX Controller 1.0 launched in June of 2018 with centralized management, monitoring, and analytics for NGINX Plus load balancers. NGINX Controller 2.0 brings advanced NGINX Plus configuration - with version control, diffing, and reverting – and ServiceNow integration. Controller 2.0 releases in Q4 2018.
- NGINX Controller 2.0 introduces new API Management Module. This new module for NGINX Controller manages NGINX Plus as an API gateway. With this module, NGINX Controller provides API definition, monitoring, and gateway configuration. This lighter-weight, simpler alternative to solutions like Apigee and Axway will be available in Q4 2018.
- NGINX Controller to include a future Service Mesh Module. A service mesh provides governance, security, and control for environments with dozens of microservices. A new NGINX Controller module, available in the first half of 2019, will manage and monitor NGINX Plus service meshes, apply microservices traffic policies, and simplify workflows.
- NGINX Plus R16 debuts new dynamic clustering. NGINX Plus R16, released in September, includes clustered state sharing and key-value stores for global rate limiting and DDoS mitigation. NGINX Plus R16 also introduces load balancing algorithms for Kubernetes and microservices, enhanced UDP for VoIP and VDI, and AWS PrivateLink integration.
- NGINX Unit 1.4 improves security and language support. NGINX Unit 1.4 now supports TLS, making it the only app server to support zero-downtime config changes with seamless certificate updates. NGINX Unit 1.4 also adds JavaScript with Node.js to extend existing Go, Perl, PHP, Python, and Ruby language support. Java support is planned for 2019.