NGINX Plus Release 9 (R9) is the latest release of NGINX’s application delivery platform. New functionality includes the ability to dynamically install rich extensions to NGINX Plus, the inclusion of commercially-supported UDP load balancing, and new pricing and support options.
Among the most significant new features is the ability to dynamically load rich extensions to NGINX Plus without the need for custom binaries, and commercially-supported UDP load balancing alongside existing TCP and HTTP load balancing capabilities.
Highlights of the new functionality include:
Dynamic modules: The introduction of dynamic modules in NGINX Plus R9 allows NGINX to be extended at runtime. Companies can now select the extensions they want, and install them directly from NGINX’s managed module repository, accessible via standard package management tools such as apt and yum. Over time NGINX will be distributing a growing set of extensions for its software.
The most popular NGINX-authored and third-party modules, such as support for the Lua programming language, have already been converted to the new dynamically loadable format. The company also published instructions for third party module owners to convert their modules to the new dynamic format, which is required before modules can be added to the NGINX repository.
UDP load balancing: In addition to existing support for TCP and HTTP load balancing, NGINX Plus can now load balance UDP applications. Support was recently added to the open source NGINX version. Advanced features in NGINX Plus include health checks, extended status monitoring, and on-the-fly reconfiguration.
NGINX Plus App Pricing: The new pricing structure provides unlimited usage of NGINX Plus’ extended capabilities and commercially-supported binaries for one flat-rate price per application, per year. No matter how many VMs, containers, nodes, concurrent connections, or users, customers pay one rate for the entire year.
NGINX Plus can now also be purchased with three different support levels; Basic 9x5 support for non-production applications, Professional 24x7 support via phone or email, and Enterprise 24x7 support with a guaranteed 30-minute or less response time.
Performance and flexibility: Also included with the release is the addition of support for DNS SRV records as upstreams for load balancing, further improvements to cache performance, and the ability to perform DNS lookups over TCP.