Installation guide

eEdgeserverservesasa“traccop”—handlingconnectionoverhead,authentication,and

otheradministrativeduties—freeingupvaluablesystemandnetworkresourcesfortheOrigin

server.Everyconnectionandconnectionattemptconsumesresourcesoverandabovetheactual

stream data owing through the connection. As the number and frequency of connections increase,

theloadcanbeexcessive,adverselyaectingserverperformance.eEdgeservergreatlyreduces

thisloadbyaggregatingconnections.Itmultiplexestheconnectionsfromalargenumberofclients

intooneconnectiontotheOriginserver.AllcommunicationsbetweentheEdgeandOrigin

servers are transparent to clients.

eEdgeserveralsostorestheprerecordedmediacontentreceivedfromtheOriginserverina

cache,whichisthenmadeavailabletootherclientsthatconnecttotheEdgeserver.Caching

staticcontentfurtherreducestheloadontheOriginserver.

Deployment strategies

AsimplewaytodistributeloadamongEdgeserversistoassignusersinageographicalregion

or otherdelineationtoaspecicEdgeserver.Forexample,oneEdgeservermayaggregateand

forwardrequestsfromclientsinLondon,whileanothermayhandlerequestsfromTokyo.

AtypicalnetworkedFlashMediaServerdeploymentcaninvolvemultipleEdgeservers,deployed

eitherindividuallyorinclusters.Edgeserverscanalsobechained,allowingevenfurther

distribution of trac.

ToenabletheEdgeandOriginfeature,youcancongureanyserverinyourclusterasyour

Originserver(orservers)andtherestasyourEdgeservers.AlleditionsinanEdgeandOrigin

congurationmustbethesame(forexample,youcannotmixFlashMediaStreamingServerand

FlashMediaInteractiveServereditionsinacluster).

Large-scaleFlashMediaServerdeploymentsaresupportedwiththeFlashMediaServerEdge

andOriginconguration.ForanintroductiontoFlashMediaServerEdgeandOriginservers,see

the DeployingtheServerChapterintheConguration and Administration Guide.

Edgeserversarealsoreferredtoasproxyservers.erearefourwaystocongureaFlashMedia

ServerEdge(orproxy)server:

• Clientauto-discoveryproxy

• Serverauto-discoveryproxy(reverseproxy)

• ExplicitURI

• ImplicitURI(recommended)

Typically,implicitURIistherecommendedsettingbecauseitisthemostsecureandrequiresthe

leastamountofcommunication.ItcanhidetheOriginserverURI,anditistheeasiesttosetup.

erefore,wewillexploretheimplicitURIconguration,butallthesemethodsaredescribedin

Using Flash Media Server Edge Servers.

Conguring proxy servers using implicit URI

e following settings dene the virtual host as a proxy server. is conguration allows the

clienttoconnectwiththeEdgeserverwithoutexposingtheproxyserver.

<Proxy>

<Mode>remote</Mode>

<Anonymous>false</Anonymous>

<CacheDir enabled=”true” useAppName=”true”>d:\fmsCache\</CacheDir>