Nginx is introducing a version of JavaScript that will be used to configure the Nginx Web server -- a move seen by analysts as improving the server's standing in devops.

Nginx will release today a preview of the technology, called NginScript. Through NginScript, users can customize how applications are published and put in place sophisticated rules, said Owen Garrett, Nginx head of products. But NginScript takes a backseat at the moment to the Lua scripting language, currently used with Nginx, in terms of sophistication.

Analysts see NginScript enabling a new alignment between Nginx and devops. “This will be helpful in devops shops and in situations where the developers need to deploy load-balancing but don't want to wait for the network team to provision it,” analyst Brad Casemore, of IDC, said in an email. “I suppose it also aligns with the infrastructure-as-code theme.”