Reverse proxy startup ngrok Inc. today debuted the Ingress Controller for Kubernetes, a tool designed to help companies process network traffic sent to their Kubernetes clusters.

The tool is launching a few months after the startup secured $50 million in Series A funding.

Enterprise applications process inbound network traffic with the help of a system known as a reverse proxy. The system blocks potentially malicious requests, while ensuring that authorized traffic is sent over secure connections. It can also be used for other tasks, such as optimizing application performance.

San Francisco-based ngrok offers a popular reverse proxy of the same name. The newly debuted ngrok Ingress Controller for Kubernetes makes it possible to deploy the startup’s reverse proxy in Kubernetes clusters. According to the startup, its software can make developers more productive by automating manual configuration tasks. 

Companies often maintain multiple copies of a Kubernetes cluster. There’s the production cluster where applications run, as well a so-called staging environment with a nearly identical configuration. The latter environment is used to test new changes before they’re released to production.

Both the production and staging clusters require a reverse proxy to manage inbound network requests. The same is true for the servers that a company’s developers use to host Kubernetes-powered software projects. Historically, software teams had to separately configure the reverse proxies of their development, staging and production environments.

The Ingress Controller for Kubernetes promises to ease the task. According to the startup, the tool allows developers to use a single set of configuration settings across their development, staging and production environments. Additionally, ngrok says, configuration templates can be reused across public cloud platforms.

“Other ingress controllers require separate tools and distinct configurations for each environment from development to production and to each cloud,” said founder and Chief Executive Officer Alan Shreve. “We’ve made it easy for developers to get ingress to the Kubernetes clusters without the complexity.”

Besides saving time for developers, the tool can potentially also reduce the risk of human error. The more settings have to be defined manually, the more opportunities there are for errors to emerge. The Ingress Controller’s ability to reuse configuration settings reduces the risk associated with manual setting management. 

The tool is implemented as a so-called controller. That’s a type of program that runs in a Kubernetes cluster and extends the container orchestration framework’s default feature set with additional capabilities. It sends inbound network requests to ngrok’s reverse proxy, which then forwards each request to the relevant containers in a Kubernetes cluster.

Software teams can use ngrok for multiple tasks. It provides the ability to monitor inbound network requests, as well as require that they be sent through encrypted network connections. Additionally, it provides the ability to implement login features for applications. 

Besides easing security tasks, the software also offers performance optimization features. It includes a so-called circuit breaker capability that detects when a Kubernetes cluster is receiving too much traffic and blocks the excess requests. There’s also a built-in load balancer that evenly distributes traffic among the servers in a cluster to avoid performance bottlenecks.

The launch of the ngrok’s Ingress Controller for Kubernetes comes five months after the startup closed a $50 million funding round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. Coatue participated as well. The startup disclosed at the time that it has 30,000 paying customers, including Databricks Inc., Zendesk Inc. and other major tech firms. 

Image: ngrok