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Adobe adds what it calls application multicasting to its Flash Media Server line, promising significant bandwidth savings-at a premium price.
Remember those late-night infomercials where you're guaranteed to add bulk and muscle to your skinny frame? And if you buy now, they'll also throw in another supplement - free of charge - that guarantees you'll lose weight, regardless of what you eat?
While those types of offers have been the butt of many jokes (and a few lawsuits), the premise has been enough to sustain these ads for years, even as technology has advanced: From their start in the classifieds section of magazines such as Popular Science to late-night television and, finally, into your email spam folder, the premise touches a near-universal desire to better ourselves, whether by gaining muscle, losing weight, or a combination of both.
Adobe is making a similar offer, although it's studiously avoiding late-night television. The offer goes something like this: Bulk up on our new flagship server, part of the Flash Media Server 4 family, at a hefty price upgrade, and we promise your media delivery budget will go on a bandwidth diet as soon as it's implemented.
Sound too good to be true? After a first look at the Flash Media Server 4 (FMS 4) family of servers, the offer appears valid.
But don't take our word for it: Stay tuned for a testimonial later in the article from a large technology company that put the FMS 4 premise to the test.
Building Blocks
Just like our late-night weight loss infomercial example, where more than just a diet supplement is needed to lose weight, FMS 4 works hand in hand with several key product rollouts that have become available over the past few months.
To allow for FMS 4's functionality such as Fast Switching and Fusion, which we'll highlight in the next section, Adobe needed to roll out upgrades across its entire ecosystem, from content protection and HTTP delivery to updated players.
Deciphering the timing of all these rollouts was a bit of a puzzle, as each product update seemed to need another product not yet ready for prime time.
For instance, Adobe could have launched Flash Media Streaming Server (FMSS 4), which supports RTMPE. But persistent...