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As Streaming Media's editors pointed out when they picked it as one of the top products of 2008, "Wowza Media Server Pro flat-out exploded in 2007." This was no understatement-Wowza has firmly established its streaming server's market presence in just over a year, garnering more than 7,000 licensees globally and racking up multiple awards. Wowza has attracted a broad industry following, from single-server licensees to CDNs and well-known enterprise and media companies.
At $995 for an unlimited-connection fully interactive edition server, Wowza Pro is not only an economical alternative to Adobe's Flash Media Interactive Server (FMIS) but a major player in the hot Flash Video streaming space. It is now also the preferred choice for demanding developers who require the reliable performance, scalability, and extensible open architecture of Wowza's Java implementation.
Getting Started
Because Wowza Media Server Pro is a pure Java server, it can be installed easily and quickly on most operating systems, including Windows, Linux, Solaris, and even Mac OS. Java 5 (aka 1.5) or newer is required, and the company recommends the latest Java Virtual Machine to achieve better performance. For evaluation or development, you can download Wowza Pro 10, a free edition of the server limited to 10 connections, or request a 30-day free trial of Wowza Media Server Pro Unlimited edition, which is the same as its paid edition. Both are available through the company's website.
The server's download package includes a very useful one-page quick start guide, a comprehensive user guide (which I highly recommend reading), and server-side API Java docs.
After reading the guides and other documentation, a developer's best ongoing resource is the Wowza Forums (www.wowzamedia.com/forums), a candy store of code snips, generously stocked by Charlie Good, Wowza's co-founder and chief architect, and a growing community of dedicated Wowza fans. Wowza clearly pays close attention to the forums, which has paid off in customer and developer appreciation and in a high-quality knowledge-base. It's a developer forum for any level.
Trying Wowza Pro Out of the Box
Wowza Pro comes with over a dozen fully functional examples that you can try right out of the box. All include Flash client applications with source code and serverside source files for the examples that require it (Figure 1). (The...