Adobe Flash Media Server

From FlashSec

Adobe Flash Media Server
Developer	Adobe Systems
Release	2.0.4
OS	Windows, Linux
Genre	Server
License	Proprietary
Type	Commercial
Website	Flash Media Server
Documentation

Wikipedia	Adobe Flash Media Server
OSFlash

Flash Media Server (previously named Flash Communication Server) is an enterprise-grade data and media server from Adobe Systems (originally a Macromedia product). This server works together with the Flash Player runtime to create media driven, multiuser RIA’s. The server uses ActionScript 1 for server-side logic.

1 History
2 Usage
3 How it works
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] History

On March 15, 2002, Macromedia released Flash Player 6. This was a revolutionary release of the platform and quickly became the fastest adopted piece of software in computer history. This version included all the functionality for a yet to be released server called Flash Communication Server MX.

Version 1.0 was released on 9 July 2002 and included all the basic features that make up the product, including the NetConnection, SharedObject and NetStream objects.

Version 1.5 was released on 27 March 2003, giving the server HTTP Tunneling, Linux Support and a free developer edition.

Version 2.0 was released on November 15 2005 and is the current version. The server was renamed to Flash Media Server for this build to better illustrate what the server does; however, the version numbers were not reset. Version 2.0 brought support to stream the new video codec in Flash Player 8, On2’s VP6. However the Flash 8 client can still only encode to the Spark codec of version 6. Version 2.0 also introduced edge-origin servers, an optional enterprise architecture that simplifies load balancing. The server side ActionScript runtime also received updates with support for XML, XMLSocket, SOAP and File operations.

[edit] Usage

Video on Demand, streaming video stored on the server to the flash client.
Live Video, an application which allows user to broadcast their own video from a webcam live to other users or to the server for recording and on demand viewing later.
Real Time Communication, an application which requires collaboration between multiple clients, such as a chat room or multiplayer game.

[edit] How it works

Flash Media Server is a hub, Flash based applications connect to the hub using RTMP (Real Time Messaging Protocol). The server can send and receive data to and from the connected users. Connected clients can call remote procedures (RPC) on the server-side; similarly the server can call methods on specific clients. A SharedObject can be used to synchronize complicated data structures and call remote methods on multiple clients in one go by having clients subscribe to a shared object. Standard actionscript objects are transported across the NetConnection using the Action Message Format (AMF) which is handled transparently by the server and flash client.

The server also allows users to receive and publish net streams. When viewing a net stream the user can either create their own to view a remotely stored FLV video or the server can instantiate a net stream and play a video on it, the latter method means that every user will be at the same point in the video when they subscribe to it as they are all viewing the same stream.

FMS can also connect to various external services including J2EE, web services, XML Sockets and ASP.NET application servers. This connectivity allows an FMS application to take advantage of features such as database connectivity, email etc.