Brandon Purcell talked about the upcoming release of the new version of the Flash Media Server.
FMS2.0 makes it possible to use an edge server scheme, in which an origin server holds the definitive version of content files and multiple edge servers are the actual points of contact for client applications, rather than the live server splitting scheme employed by current versions of FCS.
Edge servers take in requests for content and combine all requests for new content into a single stream of requests between each edge server and the origin server, or spit cached content out without disturbing the origin server at all.
Routing management and re-routing auto-discovery are features built into the new Flash 8 Player. When I figure out exactly what that means, I’ll get back to you, but I believe it has to do with the ability to change target servers based on something similar to an http redirection, as a browser would do.
Notes say Brandon mentioned a technique called edge chaining, which sounds painful, but likely involves multiple edge servers operating in unison.
Brandon compared the new On2 video codec in FLV files. He said there is no support for it in the Flash 6 or 7 Player but that an option in FMS2 allows you to set AutoStreamTypeSwitching to accomodate multiple Player releases.
FMS2 has new developer and admin features, supports RTMPS (secure real-time) protocol, DLLs, and has a Java SDK. It has a SWF admin console, a shared object browser, can stream metadata, and has better performance.
And that, my friends, is the last session report I have for you from MAX 2005. Just a couple of weeks late, but if I hadn’t waited, I couldn’t have posted the link to Brandon’s presentation notes which he just put up yesterday himself! I do have some other things to say, and I’ll get to them ASAP.