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As your number of "concurrent" users rise using the Unicast format,
there begins to be a noticeable load on the server and huge bandwidth
requirements.
You can solve this problem in 2 ways.
- Add another server. Windows Media makes it easy to simply "add
another server" to your existing media network simply by typing in the
IP address of the other machine and configuring the firewall to accept data
from this device. This doubles the capacity of your existing network.
- Move to a multicast environment
The reason there is a load on the server when serving multiple "unicast"
clients since each computer makes an individual - and sustained - connection with the
server. This is good in one way, since when delivering a stream via mms://
you have an "intelligent" connection between the server and the
client.
Your other option is to do a "multicast" broadcast. This
sends one stream from your server to a router enabled with multicast
functionality. This stream is then available to the general Internet in an
"always-on" environment. One stream - multiple users - achieved
by software compression. Pretty neat.
Your requirements would typically include a Cisco 2600/2800 router running
IOS and the VoIP Add-on on an 0C3 or better connection. Need to make this
happen? Drop
us a line and we will set you up at a reasonable rate.
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