"The server leverages the market-leading authoring environment of Macromedia Flash MX and broad distribution of Macromedia Flash Player, as well as the powerful capabilities of the entire Macromedia MX product family," says Fusion Reactor technical director, Craig Lintott.
"A development environment for creating all types of communications, the communication server provides the link between the application server on which an enterprise is developing a solution and an end user's Flash Player-enabled browser."
Fusion Reactor provides both shared and dedicated, managed Flash Communication Server hosting. Its team of Macromedia Certified staff offers complete support for developing, managing and monitoring rich Internet applications developed on ColdFusion MX, Flash Communications Server MX and FlashRemoting MX with complete support for CFC, Web Services and XML.
Flash Communication Server integrates with Java and Microsoft .NET application servers, as well as FlashRemoting, if used with another application server.
It combines powerful communication capabilities, including streaming media, rich media messaging, and real time collaboration. "Streaming media features allow developers to integrate streaming video and audio with motion graphics in a customisable player environment for a new level of multimedia presentation on the Internet," says Grant Jackson, marketing director at Fusion Director.
In addition, rich media messaging features, such as multi-way, multi-user video, and audio chats, allow developers to add engaging live, human interactions and instant messaging to their websites. The real-time collaboration features, including the powerful Shared Object technology, enable multiple users to share live white boards and other real time data in the context of an application.
According to research house, IDC, the leading development companies are those that are placing strong emphasis on deep integration rather than disparate point solutions. "Bringing together capabilities such as streaming video, real-time messaging and collaboration ushers in entirely new types of rich Internet applications that don't require users to keep launching different applications to accomplish their tasks, resulting in a better user experience," IDC says.
On the client side, Flash Communication Server takes advantage of Macromedia Flash Player to receive and transmit video, audio and data.
Macromedia Flash Player automatically recognises installed microphones and standard USB or FireWire webcams and lets end users grant or deny access before anything is broadcast.
"The networking, data storage, audio, and video support require less than 100K of code as part of the standard Macromedia Flash Player install. This compact implementation ensures a fast installation and makes this product an ideal technology for use in a wide range of devices," says Lintott.
An advanced audio codec (audio encoding and decoding, or code that performs compression and decompression) and seamless integration with standard computer audio devices provide support for audio capture and playback.
For video, a compact, efficient video codec, developed by Sorenson Media, based on industry-standard H.263 video technology, combined with support for standard video cameras, provides the ability to send and receive real time video as well as play back very-high quality pre-encoded video.
Privacy and security is a given as Macromedia Flash Player builds on standard Web browser security sandbox models to ensure the privacy and security of users. A simple interface provides an opt-in model for access to the camera and microphone as well as detailed control over the rights of individual websites.
"The ability to store data, audio and video provides complete support for the delivery of pre-encoded video content and a wide range of communications applications, including video mail, where audio and video are recorded on the server," adds Lintott.
In addition, a flexible XML-based configuration model combined with browser-based monitoring and administration tools make it easy to keep servers running securely and efficiently.
"Our scalable hosting plans allow Fusion Reactor to offer support to clients, from individual developers to large enterprises, seeking to deploy a scalable array of dedicated servers," concludes Jackson.
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