Tutorial: Wowza Media Server Pro

As 流媒体’s editors pointed out when they picked it as one of the top products of 2008, "Wowza Media Server Pro flat-out exploded in 2007." This was no understatement—Wowza has firmly established its streaming server’s market presence in just over a year, 获得超过7分,000 licensees globally and racking up multiple awards. Wowza has attracted a broad industry following, from single-server licensees to CDNs and well-known enterprise and media companies.

At $995 for an unlimited-connection fully interactive edition server, Wowza Pro is not only an economical alternative to Adobe’s Flash Media Interactive Server (FMIS) but a major player in the hot Flash Video streaming space. It is now also the preferred choice for demanding developers who require the reliable performance, 可伸缩性, and extensible open architecture of Wowza’s Java implementation.

开始
Because Wowza Media Server Pro is a pure Java server, it can be installed easily and quickly on most operating systems, 包括Windows, Linux, Solaris, 甚至是Mac OS. Java 5(又名1.5)或更新的要求, and the company recommends the latest Java Virtual Machine to achieve better performance. 用于评估或开发, 你可以下载Wowza Pro10, a free edition of the server limited to 10 connections, or request a 30-day free trial of Wowza Media Server Pro Unlimited edition, which is the same as its paid edition. Both are available through the company’s website.

The server’s download package includes a very useful one-page quick start guide, a comprehensive user guide (which I highly recommend reading), 和服务器端API Java文档.

After reading the guides and other documentation, a developer’s best ongoing resource is the Wowza Forums (www.wowzamedia.com/forums), 代码片段的糖果店, generously stocked by Charlie Good, Wowza’s co-founder and chief architect, and a growing community of dedicated Wowza fans. Wowza clearly pays close attention to the forums, which has paid off in customer and developer appreciation and in a high-quality knowledge-base. It’s a developer forum for any level.

尝试Wowza Pro开箱即用
Wowza Pro comes with over a dozen fully functional examples that you can try right out of the box. All include Flash client applications with source code and server-side source files for the examples that require it. (The Flash client applications are Flash 8/AS2, and there are Flash CS3 and Flex versions to be found on the company’s forums.)

These examples cover everything from simple video-on-demand applications to live streaming, 闲谈，聊天, 记录, 以及基于需求的负载平衡. There are examples that demonstrate techniques for securing content (SecureToken) and bandwidth-checking, and there are examples that demonstrate some of the unique features of the server such as SHOUTcast audio restreaming. Instructions on how to install and launch examples are included in the Quick Start Guide and in each example’s README file.

Wowza Pro和Adobe FMIS
Wowza Media Server Pro and Flash Media Interactive Server are both fully interactive servers with extensive capabilities. They provide the same core API for a Flash player client to interact with a streaming server and to play, 发布, 录制流媒体视频, audio, 和文本.

But beyond the identical core API, the servers take a different approach to the server-side programming. FMIS使用ActonScript. 像这样, FMIS is a proprietary server that uses asynchronous methods to interact with other resources, such as a database—a methodology similar to what a Flash or Flex application uses to interact with a remote server.

In comparison, Wowza uses Java and can take advantage of many readily available Java tools. Java developers will find this capability a welcome relief. 例如, a developer can drop an off-the-shelf Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) driver into the Wowza Pro lib folder, 重启Wowza服务器, and connect directly to a database. As a stable Java application with an enterprise-friendly architecture, Wowza Pro opens up new possibilities to developers, 企业IT经理, 和集成商.