It's always interesting when you bring two different circles of friends together. Maybe one is your gaming circle and another is your parent circle. They don't always intersect, but at some point you may find yourself in a situation where you're all at the same event and you get to introduce them to each other.
That's kind of what it's been like for the past few months as we bring together NGINX and F5 friends. Sure, customers and communities knew about each other, but they didn't necessarily know each other. This September, in Seattle, NGINX will be hosting its annual conference. I'm already booked to go and you should (very seriously) consider attending, too.
The enterprise operates, on average, hundreds of applications. Those applications are not just supporting the business -- in many cases they are the business. It's also likely they're one of the more than 400 million apps currently running on NGINX.
But in the same manner that I often have to explain that F5 is more than "that load balancing company," I now often need to explain that NGINX is more than “that web server company.” NGINX boasts a broad set of application services that begins with a web server, includes a multi-language app server, extends to APIs, offers load balancing and reverse proxy functions and offers the critical component for bridging the gap between traditional and modern architectures: its Ingress controller for Kubernetes. They've got app and app service infrastructure, all under the same roof.
Together, we're totally invested in the delivery of applications, whether you need an F5 or an NGINX solution -- or both.
At NGINX Conf this year, the focus is on empowering developers, operators, and architects looking to modernize their apps and infrastructure. NGINX Conf is chock full of sessions and training to help accelerate their transformation to modern ops, infrastructure, and apps. More than half of all speakers are customer-users. That means a lot of practical sessions on how NGINX is being applied to solve real challenges in real organizations.
There's no better time for NetOps than now to head to NGINX Conf and immerse in some training on how to support those modern apps developers and operators are throwing over the wall.
The cool thing about NGINX Conf is that it has something for everyone. If you want to get hands-on, there are training sessions on everything NGINX. If you want vision and future product direction, there are keynotes and sessions that will offer you both. If you want to explore, you can do that too. Sessions on NGINX's approach to delivering and operating a fast, flexible microservices architecture are on the docket.
You can delve into NGINX's API management architecture and find out how to simultaneously reduce complexity and realize better performance. Or you can learn more about the NGINX Kubernetes Ingress Controller and how it can help you support modern (cloud-native) apps without disrupting traditional ones.
NGINX is going to play a significant role in the future of F5 and in the continuing evolution of application services in every operational environment. This conference is a great way to get more familiar with NGINX and its offerings as well as hang out with its incredible community.
NGINX Conf is happening Sept 9-12, with Sept 9 and 12 dedicated to technical training. It's at the Sheraton Grand Seattle and you can dig into the agenda and register here.