Installation guide

Factors aecting performance
is section explains how performance for Flash Media Server 3.5 is aected by dierent
conditions. Measuring performance increases is done by comparing the number of concurrent
streamsforagivenCPUutilization.Knowinghowmanystreamsaservercansupporthelps
you determine how many servers you need to deploy.
e number of streams a server can deliver is dependent upon a variety of conditions, including:
• Protocol—RTMPisthehighestperformingprotocol,followedbyRTMPE.
• Video bit rate (quality)—elowerthebitrateofyourvideo,themoreconcurrentstreamscan
be delivered by your server.
• Platform—YoucandelivermoreconnectionswithlessCPUusageutilizingLinuxRedHat4.
• Hardware—HardwaresuchasRAM,diskspeed,CPU,andnetworkspeedinuencethe
streaming capacity.
• Conguration—FlashMediaServer3.5 comes precongured for optimal streaming
performanceformostsituations.Changingthecongurationmayimproveyourperformance.
• Application complexity—Ifyoudeploycustomplug-insordevelopcomplexserver-side
application logic, your performance may increase or decrease.
• Usage—ewayyourusersinteractwithyourvideoimpactsserverperformance.Interactions
could include connecting, disconnecting, seeking, or pausing. is is discussed in more detail
in the next section.
Flash Media Server 3.5 performance metrics
Flash Media Server 3 introduced over two times the performance on Windows deployments and
overthreetimestheperformanceonLinux.efollowingtablesshowtheperformancemetrics
for Flash Media Server in two scenarios:
• VOD—Usingprerecordedvideo
• Live video—UsinglivevideostreamedfromFlashMediaLiveEncoder2
Capacitynumberswerecalculatedusingthefollowinghardwareplatforms.e numbers in this
studywereachievedwith2X1Gbpsnetworkadaptors,buttheresultspublishedarelimitedto
1Gbpsthroughput.
Server hardware
HP ProLiant DL360 G4p servers, with dual-core 3.6GHz, Xeon processors
with hyperthreading
Server conguration: 3.5GB of 200MHz DDR SDRAM, a SCSI2, 64GB RAID 0 disk storage at
10K RPM, and bonded/teamed 1GB Intel Pro 100 XF Ethernet cards at 133MHz
Operating
systems
Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1; Linux Red Hat 4, kernel 2.6.9-22
Flash Player
Version 9,0,115,0
Test media
• 700Kbps: FLV, 117 minutes, 763MB using On2 VP6 codec
• 300Kbps: FLV, 53 minutes, 105MB using On2 VP6 codec
• 128Kbps: MP3; 52 minutes, 61MB using MP3 ID3v2.3 tag
Flash Media
Server
Version 3: default conguration using default chunk size and cache
Video on demand
To provide a good comparison, the following graph shows the total number of streams achieved
whileusingonly20%CPU.Linuxwasabletosaturatea1Gbpsnetworkadaptorwithjustover
20%CPU.esecondgraphillustratesthecapabilityofeachprotocolwithhigherCPUusage.
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