MACROMEDIA FIREWORKS 2-USING FIREWORKS Mounting instructions

Using Flash Media Server

Edge Servers

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Acknowledgments

Project Management: Suzanne Smith

Writing: John Norton, Suzanne Smith

Editing: Evelyn Eldridge, Mary Ferguson, Lisa Stanziano, Anne Szabla

Production Management: Adam Barnett

Media Design and Production: Aaron Begley, Paul Benkman, John Francis, Mario Reynoso

First Edition: October 2005

Macromedia, Inc.

601 Townsend St.

San Francisco, CA 94103

Contents

Using Edge and Origin Servers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Introducing edge servers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5

How edge servers work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6

Caching data in edge servers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9

Deploying edge servers in the DMZ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9

Explicit and implicit proxies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Reverse proxies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11

Routing information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Connecting to an edge server. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Detecting the presence of proxy servers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Chaining edge servers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Configuring edge servers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Deploying a cluster of edge servers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Connecting to a cluster of edge servers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Enrolling proxy servers in the cluster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Accessing applications through an edge cluster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Clustering reverse proxies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Setting up origin and proxy servers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Maintaining edge server clusters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Clearing the edge server cache . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

4Contents

Using Edge and Origin

Servers

This chapter describes the various strategies for deploying Flash Media Server with edge and

origin servers.

Introducing edge servers

Until this release of Flash Media Server, clients always connected directly to the computer

where the application was running. These applications were running locally, since their

execution occurred on the same computer that the clients were connected to. This release of

Flash Media Server introduces the concept of remote execution of applications. Flash Media

Server can now run applications locally as an origin server or remotely as edge servers. Edge

servers are not a different kind of Flash Media Server, rather, they are configured to run

applications remotely.

Deploying edge servers in your organization offers significant benefits. Enhanced security is

one benefit. Applications running on the origin server are no longer directly exposed to the

Internet. All requests for Flash Media Server services are routed through known and secure

connection points. These connectors are called edge, or proxy, servers; the terms are

interchangeable. Administrators can monitor the traffic on edge servers. The access log files

for each edge server lets administrators verify that the connections are authorized. The log files

also identify unauthorized requests for connections.

The edge server-origin server deployment is flexible. Edge servers let administrators scale up

or redistribute access to Flash Media Server without dismantling their current deployment.

Administrators can add edge servers. Administrators can reallocate edge servers to match

realignments of users and sites within an organization, or changes in the flow of traffic among

the sites.

6 Using Edge and Origin Servers

Deploying edge servers lets administrators distribute the incoming connection requests for

Flash Media Server services. Traffic between clients and the origin server uses the existing

bandwidth and system resources more efficiently. More traffic occurs locally between the

clients’ computers and the edge server. Without edge servers, all clients have to connect to a

Flash Media Server origin server, no matter where that server is located.

Edge servers mediate communications traffic between the organization’s trusted network and

an untrusted network such as the Internet. Using edge servers does not remove the need for a

firewall to manage the traffic at an IP level, but does provide an additional layer of security at

the application level.

How edge servers work

With an edge-origin deployment strategy, all connection requests from users’ computers for

Flash Media Server services are redirected to an edge server. The edge server receives the

request from the user’s computer, but the edge server is not running the application. The edge

server makes the connection to another computer, called the origin server, where the

application is running. When the origin server fulfills the request for Flash Media Server

services, it sends the application’s data back to the edge server, which in turn forwards the data

to the client (the user’s computer).

It may seem to the users that they are directly connected to the origin server where the

application is located. The edge server does make it appear as if it is running the application.

The edge server’s role, however, is to mediate the communications between clients and the

origin server. Edge servers authenticate the users and authorize their requests for web services.

For example, when Flash Media Server is deployed solely on one computer and is running just

one application instance, system and network resources may not always be sufficient when a

large number of users in an organization want to connect almost simultaneously to Flash

Media Server from multiple locations. Such might be the case in an enterprise-wide meeting

or conference. When too many users want to access the same application at the same time, the

existing bandwidth and system resources can be overwhelmed. Increased latency is another

indication that resources need to be reconfigured or reallocated.

Every connection into the origin server consumes resources independent of the actual data

flowing through the connection. As the number of connections increase, this load can become

inordinately large and adversely affect the server performance. The edge server greatly

mitigates this problem by aggregating connections. The edge multiplexes the connections

from a large number of clients on to one connection to the origin server.

Introducing edge servers 7

Such constraints may prompt the Flash Media Server and network administrators to consider

a different deployment strategy. The strategy involves configuring Flash Media Server to

redistribute the load on system and bandwidth resources by running some virtual hosts as

edge servers and other virtual hosts as origin servers.

Rather than forwarding every request to the origin server and consuming resources for such

repetitive tasks, the edge server collects the requests from a large number of clients and

aggregates them into one connection to the origin server. All communications between edge

and origin servers happen transparently to the users.

To distribute the demands on network and system resources, administrators can assign the

users in a geographical region or functional area of the organization to a specific edge server.

For example, one edge server might aggregate and forward requests from users in Tokyo and

another might aggregate and forward requests from Paris. The edge servers in Paris and Tokyo

gather the requests from their clients and forward them to the origin server located in another

secured location, such as Chicago.

Edge Server

Tokyo

Edge Server

Paris

Origin Server

Chicago

End User

8 Using Edge and Origin Servers

Users in these zones always access the origin server through their assigned edge servers. These

edge servers receive the responses from the origin server, then distribute them back to the

clients (the users’ computers) in their respective zones: Paris or Tokyo. The edge also stores the

data received from the origin server in a cache, and makes it available to other clients that

connect to this edge server. Recycling the data is one more way that edge servers use resources

efficiently. Caching static content reduces the overall load placed on the origin server.

A networked Flash Media Server deployment involves multiple edge servers; these can be

deployed individually or in clusters. Edge servers can also be chained, where one edge server

collects and aggregates the connection requests from other edge servers and their clients, then

transmits the requests to an origin server.

Origen

Server

Client (Users)

Edge

Server

Edge

Server

Edge

Server

Edge

Server

Edge

Server

Edge

Server

Edge

Server

Edge

Server

Edge

Server

Edge

Server

Edge

Server

Client (Users)

Client (Users

)

Client (Users) Client (Users)

Introducing edge servers 9

Caching data in edge servers

An edge server is designed to intercept the requests for Flash Media Server services from users

in a particular zone, collect or aggregate these requests, and transmit them to the origin server.

The origin server returns the results to the edge server, which in turn sends the data back to

the user’s client computer. The edge server also stores this information in its cache, where

other users or clients assigned to the same edge server can access it. In this scenario, fewer

requests for services are forwarded to the origin server.

The edge server caches data such as video streams and shared objects. When a user requests

data that is found in the edge server’s cache, it returns the data to the requesting client (the

user’s computer) without ever calling upon the origin server. This detour is transparent to the

user. The edge server is conserving bandwidth by not connecting to the origin server. In this

scenario, no demands are placed on the origin server.

Deploying edge servers in the DMZ

Edge servers may be deployed in the demilitarized zone (DMZ) of a corporate network. A

DMZ is an isolated network placed between an organization’s trusted network and the

Internet’s untrusted network. In this deployment, the edges function as proxy servers for all

Real Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP) traffic that flows through the organization’s network.

Deploying edge servers in the DMZ provides one more layer of defense between the user’s

Internet connection and the origin server. All traffic that comes from the Internet with Flash

Media Server as its destination must pass through an edge server.

10 Using Edge and Origin Servers

With the edge servers sitting in the DMZ, the network operators can open access to port

1936, avoiding the system overhead and risk of HTTP tunneling. Because the edge server

performs stream splitting and stream caching, it uses the connection to the origin server

efficiently, reducing the Internet bandwidth cost. The user also benefits from the more reliable

connectivity.

Explicit and implicit proxies

Edge servers are defined by the values in the configuration files. Both explicit and implicit

(also called anonymous) proxies intercept and aggregate the clients’ requests to connect to the

applications running on an origin server. The explicit edge server prefixes its address to the

origin server’s Uniform Resource Identifier (URI). This configuration makes the client (the

user’s computer) aware of the proxy. The URI in the explicit proxy specifies the edge servers

that will intercept the clients’ connection requests to the origin server.

The identity (the IP address and port number) of the implicit proxy is hidden from the client.

The implicit proxy does not change or modify the routing information in the incoming URI

before it connects the clients to the origin server. Edge servers are also defined as implicit

proxies through the Flash proxy auto-detection process (FPAD).

Flash Media Server and network administrators can deploy Flash Media Server and route the

incoming connection requests to the origin server through one or more edge servers. These

implicit edges are transparent because the client is unaware of the proxy. They are also

sometimes referred to as interception proxies. This deployment strategy is useful to ISP and

telco providers for optimizing the flow of RTMP traffic through their networks.

Firewall,

Router,

Load Balancer Edge Server Cluster

80,

443,

1935

Origin

Server

DMZ

443

1935

1936

End User

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