DEVOPSdigest

F5 announced the general availability of F5 NGINXaaS for Azure, an integrated solution co-developed by F5 and Microsoft that empowers enterprises to deliver secure, high-performance applications in the cloud.

NGINXaaS for Azure empowers application developers to deliver consistent, secure, and high-performing apps conveniently purchased through the Azure Marketplace and deployed with just a few clicks in the Azure Portal. With NGINXaaS for Azure, customers can seamlessly bring their existing NGINX configurations into the Azure cloud, enabling multi-cloud and hybrid solutions with their NGINX load balancer.

NGINXaaS for Azure helps enterprises:

- Ensure end-to-end security by employing the same trusted load balancing solution across the entire estate of applications, both on premises and in the cloud, while also improving the health and security of the code base.

- Deploy advanced traffic management such as JWT authentication and active health checks including built-in integrations with Azure Key Vault for SSL/TLS certificate management.

- Migrate applications from on premises to the cloud by bringing existing NGINX configurations via CI/CD pipeline hooks for NGINX configurations stored in GitHub repositories or Azure DevOps.

- Leverage the flexibility and power of Azure to conveniently view all applications in one place and efficiently manage certificates across the enterprise.

- Enjoy a consistent experience across all other services used on Azure in a centralized location through deep integration with Azure components and the same look-and-feel.

First released in public preview in May 2022, this new generally available release has added enhanced capabilities based on customer feedback, including:

- Content caching to speed delivery to clients while also reducing the workload on servers.

- Rate limiting for protection of upstream web and application servers.

- The ability to set up metrics-based alerts for proactive monitoring.

- Availability in additional Azure regions and zones for improved performance and security for business-critical workloads.

In addition, NGINXaaS for Azure offers a flexible consumption option allowing customers to address usage needs more easily and only pay for what they need. This flexibility provides an integrated user experience through the Azure Portal with pay-as-you-go, annual, and multiyear contracts via private offers that provide customers with specific subscription terms based on their use case.

“We have learned so much from our customers in public preview thus far,” said Rob Whiteley, VP and GM of NGINX at F5. “Together, Microsoft and F5 NGINX are simplifying the deployment and management of applications in complex hybrid environments by enabling developers and cloud teams to optimize performance and deliver consistent security for distributed applications on a global scale.”

“The ability to get up and running on any project in a matter of minutes with a fully configured, secure, cloud-hosted environment empowers teams to achieve organizational goals faster,” said Julia Liuson, President of Microsoft's Developer Division (DevDiv). “Our collaboration with F5 is making it easier for application developers, IT operators, and service operation teams to respond more quickly to their customers by providing NGINX networking capabilities integrated into Microsoft Azure.”