NGINX and NGINX Plus are also classified as web traffic control‐ lers. You can use NGINX to intellengently route traffic and control flow based on many attributes. This chapter covers NGINX’s ability to split client requests based on percentages, utilize geographical location of the clients, and control the flow of traffic in the form of rate, connection, and bandwidth limiting. As you read through this chapter, keep in mind that you can mix and match these features to enable countless possibilities.
Today’s internet user experience demands performance and uptime. To achieve this, multiple copies of the same system are run, and the load is distributed over them. As the load increases, another copy of the system can be brought online. This architecture technique is called horizontal scaling. Software-based infrastructure is increasing in popularity because of its flexibility, opening up a vast world of possibilities. Whether the use case is as small as a set of two for high availability or as large as thousands around the globe, there’s a need for a load-balancing solution that is as dynamic as the infrastructure. NGINX fills this need in a number of ways, such as HTTP, TCP, and UDP load balancing, which we cover in this chapter.
To get started with NGINX Open Source or NGINX Plus, you first
need to install it on a system and learn some basics. In this chapter
you will learn how to install NGINX, where the main configuration
files are, and commands for administration. You will also learn how
to verify your installation and make requests to the default server.