NGINX Plus R18 introduces dynamic loading of SSL/TLS certificates, enhances our OpenID Connect reference implementation, and supports port ranges for virtual servers. It also includes enhancements to the key-value store, health checks, NGINX Plus clustering, and the NGINX JavaScript module.

We describe three progressively more secure ways to protect SSL private keys when configuring NGINX to handle HTTPS traffic: allowing read access only to the root user, encrypting keys with separately stored passwords, and distributing passwords from a central repository.

In this installment of our "Ask NGINX" series, we describe how NGINX and NGINX Plus support Nagios, single sign-on, and MQTT; discuss storing cookies in the NGINX Plus key-value store; and explain how to upgrade NGINX Plus licenses from a free trial to a paid subscription.

The NGINX Controller API Management Module secures your APIs at every API touchpoint – authenticating and authorizing third-party client applications and developers, rate limiting API calls to mitigate DDoS attacks, and protecting backend applications that process the API calls.

With NGINX Controller’s API Management Module, you define an API just once and publish it to as many environments as you want. This “create once, publish many” approach eliminates user errors as well as saving time and effort, especially if you have to define a lot of APIs.

NGINX Unit 1.8.0 introduces internal routing of requests based on host, URL, and HTTP method, This sets the framework for full Layer 7 request processing, necessary for further development of Unit's web server functionality.

The Signal Sciences Certified Module for NGINX Plus brings additional modern web and API security to the NGINX Plus platform. The combined solution helps enterprises replace outdated legacy WAF and load-balancing appliances, such as the F5 Advanced WAF and F5 BIG-IP.

In this inaugural post in our "Ask NGINX" series, we explain how to convert F5 BIG-IP iRules and Apache rewrite rules to NGINX syntax, use NGINX as an API gateway and NGINX Controller for full API lifecycle management, and implement blue-green deployment with NGINX.

In his session at NGINX Conf 2018, Timo Stark of Audi shares how his team built the Audi Cockpit, a dashboard on which Audi employees access work apps. NGINX Plus serves as API gateway for the dashboard, which uses AWS-hosted microservices in Kubernetes-managed containers.

Some of the loudest buzz in the IT industry during 2018 was around the concept of service mesh. Here we review some of the major developments in the space, including introductions, enhancements, and consolidations for both commercial products and open source projects.