Ask an FMS Guru #31: How can I move FLV files that have been recorded with Flash Media Server 2 to another server?

Wow, the big three one.. almost as many tutorials as I am old. It's been a while since I've posted an FMS guru question up here because I've been responding privately with a few that just wouldn't pertain to most and found it a bit tough to write a more generic post for it. Anyways, this question falls under that category nicely, so here goes.

The question: How can I move FLV files that have been recorded with Flash Media Server 2 to another server?

The answer:
This is actually a very common request from clients and friends alike. How to get those FLV files off of the FMS server and over to the web server to played progressively.

I'd like to first start with giving a bit of insight as to why somebody would want to do this.

1. FMS2 is a lot of money for one pro license. If you can keep BW and connections to a minimum then you won't have to buy more licenses to keep up with demand. In the case of recording video, you need a connection and need to use FMS bandwidth, but not for playback. That can be done with a web server and save that cost.

2. Sometimes you just don't want to stream files and let people download the FLV to be cached for quicker playback later. It does have the drawback that the user can't seek ahead before download, but see #1 and think on the cost savings.

3. Sometimes you want both and of course FMS should be on it's own box. In this case you will need to copy the FLV files over to the web server, wherever that may be.

So how to do this?

It's going to depend on if the servers are on the same network, like an internal one maybe. In this case it's reasonably simple to make a small bit of code in a batch file or something to watch a particular folder. If a new file is put in the folder then copy it over to the other server. Unfortunately this is a rare problem for most and it's a requirement to get the files over the internet to another server.

My first and pretty much only suggestion would be to use FTP to move the files. It's just a matter of how to do that.

You can setup most FTP programs to watch a folder and when a new file is in there to copy over to another server. Or just setup a timer. The person asking this particular question is asking how to do that in ASP.NET. I don't know for sure, but I'm positive there has to be some kind of plugin(or maybe just straight out of the box) that will allow you to do FTPing. I've done it with ASP, so I would guess that ASP.NET can too.

Other than that there really isn't any other option. I suppose if you can setup virtual folders over the network then you can have FMS just record straight to another server (I've seen this done) but it's iffy when you then have to worry about network speed etc, so this is best practiced within an internal network.

Hope that helps a bit.

Posted by Graeme at October 11, 2007 05:05 AM