Nginx, makers of the popular Nginx open source web server, will begin shipping on April 12 a multilingual application server called Nginx Unit. It has also upgraded its Nginx Plus application server and announced a new control plane.
Nginx Unit 1.0
Configured via a dynamic API, Nginx Unit 1.0 is an open source application server. Unlike the Nginx web server, which is designed for serving web pages and websites, the Nginx Unit application server is a web server that also can run code such as what might be found in a microservices environment. Application-level logic is supported. Supported languages in the initial release include Go, Perl, PHP, Python, and Ruby. Support for Java and JavaScript is due soon.
Microservices are simplified via Nginx Unit because a single instance can simultaneously serve multiple application types, the company said. Nginx Unit also has networking capabilities such as reverse-proxying.
Nginx Plus R15
Nginx also plans to release by July 2018 an upgrade to its Nginx Plus, the commercial version of its web server platform. Nginx Plus R15:
- enhances its API gateway, with better support for authentication, and uses OpenID Connect for services communications.
- provides an identity layer on top of the OAuth 2.0 authorization protocol.
- improves clustering for handling of multiple-instance connections via its load-balancing capabilities
- adds HTTP/2 enhancements specific to server push, for more proactive push of data to the client for microservices networking,
- adds more support for the gRPC remote procedure call framework.
Nginx Controller R1
Nginx has also introduced Nginx Controller R1, a control plane for configuring an Nginx tool. A commercial product, it features monitoring dashboards as well as alerting and management of Nginx software instances. It is also scheduled to ship on April 12.
Where to download Nginx’s new servers
You can download beta versions of Nginx Unit and Controller now; the production versions will be available from the same location as of April 12.