User Guide

14 Chapter 1: Getting Started
• Extensibility Flash Remoting is designed to integrate with established application design
patterns and best practices to build well-designed Flash applications.
When compared to traditional HTML-based browser applications, Flash applications provide
unique abilities to create dynamic and sophisticated user interactions, including the following:
• Macromedia Flash Player runtime to execute code, transmit data, and invoke remote services
• Separation of client-side presentation logic from the server-side application logic
• Efficient use of bandwidth provided by the AMF protocol
• Easy deployment on multiple platforms and devices
On the server side, Flash Remoting runs as a servlet in Java application servers, an assembly in
.NET servers, and a native service in ColdFusion MX. Depending on the application server
platform, Flash Remoting on the server contains a series of filters that perform logging, error
handling, and security authentication, as well as automatically mapping the service function
request to the appropriate server technology.
Using Flash Remoting, you can build sophisticated Flash applications, such as a message board,
shopping cart, or product catalog. The following figure depicts a simplified representation of the
Flash Remoting architecture:
Flash Remoting data flow
You typically initiate a service request by making a choice that requires Flash to request data from
the server. For example, a sports fan might ask to see what seats are available in a particular section
of an arena. The Flash Player uses the Action Message Format (AMF), to send the request over
HTTP to Flash Remoting. Flash Remoting receives the service function request and dispatches it
to the appropriate application server or web service call.