Web Server / Streaming Server Comparison, Part 3

Using A Streaming Server

Uploading and Storing

Similar to the processes used to prepare and upload files for web server streaming, media produced for dedicated streaming servers is also compressed and then transferred to a specialized servers. Links to that media are then placed on web pages which exist on a standard web server.

NOTE: It is possible to run a standard web server and specialized media server on the same computer. However, as will be pointed out later on, this negates one of the advantages of having a dedicated streaming media server, which is to deliver media without bogging down web page delivery.

Delivering the Files

It is at this point that the two technologies (web server streaming, and media server streaming) diverge significantly. While standard web servers deliver their files in a “passive” mode, utilizing discrete “bursts” of data, streaming media servers operate in a much more flexible and dynamic manner.

Streaming servers employ an intelligent methodology that involves delivering their data at a rate tailored to the compression of the audio and video files. Unlike standard web servers, the streaming media servers maintain close and active contact with the clients (users’ browsers) during the process. Thus, they can receive feedback from the clients, and act accordingly.

Streaming Server Technology

Both the HTTP and TCP technologies employed by standard web servers are also available to streaming media servers. However, the streaming servers can, in addition, use alternate technologies such as User Datagram Protocol (UDP). Much faster than the traditional TCP technology, UDP is superior to TCP in its handling of data, and has a vastly improved way in which to re-transmit any lost data.

TCP ploddingly re-transmits lost data, regardless of what this might do to the smoothness of the player on the other end. UDP technology, on the other hand, only re-transmits data that it senses can reach the user’s player in time to be incorporated without interruption of the viewer’s experience.

But there’s more: due to the way TCP operates, UDP traffic actually gets priority over TCP traffic, which gives it an advantage.

How They Stack Up

Because of their inherent differences, web servers and dedicated streaming media servers offer unique capabilities to producers and end users, in terms of how simple they are to set up and manage on the producer’s end, and what the experience is like on the user’s end.

In order to delve more deeply into those dichotomies, let’s take a look at one particular format: Windows Media. To learn more about the specifics of delivering Windows Media files via a standard web server and a media server, read the next article in the series:

Web Server / Streaming Server Comparison, Part 4

Windows Media Servers