Nginx: A Russian software that takes over the entire network

More than 10 years ago, an obscure Open-source Web server software was born, and more than 10 years later, its influence could rival Apache, attracting a large number of internet giants around the world, according to the US Wired magazine. He is the nginx of Russia. It was 2008, and Automattic intended to replace the Web server software used to support WordPress services, and things didn't work out that well.

The company is determined to move WordPress to a Web server in order to stick to its consistent open-source strategy, and the world's best-known Apache is undoubtedly the first. But engineers have tried to find that Apache crashes, especially when WordPress is unusually busy.

"We recognize that it is very unstable in the case of large flow," said Barry Abrahamson, who is in charge of the mission, Barry Abrahamsen.

So Automattic stopped the transition to Apache, but took the risk of adopting the less well-known Open-source project Nginx. 5 years later, WordPress is still running on Nginx, and other companies have followed suit.

In an era when the world's best-known web servers are losing market share, Nginx's market share is growing because of its unpretentious business philosophy and the skills to handle multiple network links at the same time. Apache is still the king of all Web servers, but the number of Nginx has doubled in the past two years.

Currently, it serves 15% of sites, including startups like CloudFlare, parse, and internet giants like Automattic and Netflix. "We use as many software stacks on the nginx as possible." "Prof Abrahamson said.

In any case, it's not like a success story, but it shows the global impact of open source software.

Nginx by Russian engineer Igor Sisov (Igor Sysoev), the 42-Year-old engineer opened the project in 2002, and the first version of the public code was launched in October that year.

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Like other Open-source project leaders, he wants the project to meet his needs. At that time, he served in Russia's fast-growing doorway to the Web site Rambler. Therefore, he needs a server that can handle more traffic than the existing open source server.

During the Nginx development, he used Rambler to test his code. But its first real user is the MP3 download site Zvuki, followed by an online dating site, followed by Rambler's photo-sharing site.

As of 2005, the number of Nginx users was close to 100, but it was difficult for users from English-speaking countries to understand the software because most of the files and discussion stickers were in Russian. But for 2006 years, English users started posting in the Nginx discussion area, and Russian users in the U.S. and other countries are also promoting the program, not only sharing profiles in blogs, but also translating complex Russian technical documents into formats that other users can understand.

When YouTube and Facebook began to rise, Nginx remained tepid, but he positioned himself in the next generation of internet companies. A few years later, Automattic and CloudFlare also joined the ranks of its users.

In 2009, CloudFlare created a company to provide services related to shielding network attacks and enhancing the performance of Web sites. The Web server software it needs must be able to run on multi-core processor devices.

Matthew Prince, co-founder and chief executive of CloudFlare, said Nginx is performing well in multi-core multiprocessor devices, which can connect to many Web clients without consuming large computer memory.

If you can't check the source code, will they also choose unknown Russian software? "No," said Prince, "if it's not open source, we don't trust it at all." ”

CloudFlare provides a position for Sisov and bets the company on the project. Today, CloudFlare uses Nginx to respond to 1 trillion times of network demand each month. "The better part of the scientific community is that good technology will eventually emerge," Mr Prince said. "You can read the source code and fix it." ”

Today, Nginx is popular in startups like CloudFlare. According to statistics, 40% of the 12 million sites using Amazon's cloud computing services use Nginx services. and Nginx's business growth is mostly at the expense of Apache's market.

What Sisov satisfies is a real need. "The problem he solves is very common. This is not a question for Russians at all. "An increasing number of businesses are nginx to online services, which means that each server has more users and more complex structures," says Andrew Alexeev, co-founder of Andrew Alexei. ”

After Automattic2008 to the new platform, founder Matt Murlenwig (Matt Mullenweg) donated 3500 dollars to Sisov. "I want to know what I can do for you," he wrote, "he did a good job." ”

At this point, Sisov knew he had the greatest opportunity. "This is my biggest donation. "He said, recalling.

Two years ago, he resigned from his job at Rambler. Now he is the chief technology director of a new company, which mainly sells efficient versions of Nginx to corporate users. Last month, the company launched its first commercial product: Nginxplus. After 10 years of research and development, with 100 million of Web site support, Sisov finally ready to make a big profit.