Adobe have just announced the immediate availability of the version 2 of Stratus, an update to the existing Peer 2 Peer rendezvous service that was launched in 2008.

In Adobe's words: "Adobe Stratus 2 enables peer assisted networking using the Real Time Media Flow Protocol (RTMFP) within the Adobe Flash Platform. The most important features of RTMFP include low latency, end-to-end peering capability, security and scalability. These properties make RTMFP especially well suited for developing real-time collaboration applications by not only providing superior user experience but also reducing cost for operators."

While this sounds like the same capabilities that the previous version of Stratus offered it contains some significant updates, the main one being support for RTMFP Groups.

There has been a bit of confusion around which one of Adobe's collaborative platforms offers or will offer certain features. In particular many people have asked if a developer always needs to rely on a hosted service such as Stratus or Lifecycle Collaboration Service (aka AFCS aka Cocomo) when wanting to use the new RTMFP protocol which will deliver (partly is delivering already) new and exciting features to the Flash Player.

To clear thing up, Kevin Towes, FMS Product Manager at Adobe, just posted the following information to the FlashMedia List:

STRATUS - this will always be ahead of the curve, providing a way to help us roll out new features that are in Flash player, before we can have a server offering. The service is and will remain as a free non-commercial service from Adobe. This service is not FMS, and has no ability for Server side scripting, or customization.

AFCS/LIVECYCLE COLLABORATION SERVICE - this will be a commercial option for customers interested in building a business that includes RTMFP. We introduced a pricing model, and it has support for the features found inside Stratus 1.0 (supporting Flash player 10.0). Key advantage with this service is the framework, which is an option for developers to get started, and leverage RTMFP to RTMP failover technology. You still will not have access to server side scripting, but there are lots of APIs in the framework to get you going. The goal for this service is to provide developers an option to bring this technology into your solution.

FLASH MEDIA SERVER - we have not announced any new version of FMS yet that will support RTMFP. We did hint yesterday that we'll be updating FMS3.5 to version 3.5.3 later this year to support the new FP 10.1 features - and in a future version after that release - FMS may be one of your options to host a local service to build your own P2P applications - including introductions, and supporting server side programming.

Thanks Kevin, I think this clears things up somewhat.

There has been a bit of confusion around which one of Adobe's collaborative platforms offers or will offer certain features. In particular many people have asked if a developer always needs to rely on a hosted service such as Stratus or Lifecycle Collaboration Service (aka AFCS aka Cocomo) when wanting to use the new RTMFP protocol which will deliver (partly is delivering already) new and exciting features to the Flash Player.

To clear thing up, Kevin Towes, FMS Product Manager at Adobe, just posted the following information to the FlashMedia List:

STRATUS - this will always be ahead of the curve, providing a way to help us roll out new features that are in Flash player, before we can have a server offering. The service is and will remain as a free non-commercial service from Adobe. This service is not FMS, and has no ability for Server side scripting, or customization.

AFCS/LIVECYCLE COLLABORATION SERVICE - this will be a commercial option for customers interested in building a business that includes RTMFP. We introduced a pricing model, and it has support for the features found inside Stratus 1.0 (supporting Flash player 10.0). Key advantage with this service is the framework, which is an option for developers to get started, and leverage RTMFP to RTMP failover technology. You still will not have access to server side scripting, but there are lots of APIs in the framework to get you going. The goal for this service is to provide developers an option to bring this technology into your solution.

FLASH MEDIA SERVER - we have not announced any new version of FMS yet that will support RTMFP. We did hint yesterday that we'll be updating FMS3.5 to version 3.5.3 later this year to support the new FP 10.1 features - and in a future version after that release - FMS may be one of your options to host a local service to build your own P2P applications - including introductions, and supporting server side programming.

Thanks Kevin, I think this clears things up somewhat.

InfoQ has an interesting article about Adobe's Collaboration Platforms including ConnectNow and AFCS. In it Raffaele Sena who is a Senior Computer Scientist in Adobe's Business Productivity Unit talks about the scalability challenges of a system such as Connect and how the team has addressed them.
In particular he mentions the use of Terracotta and how it helped scale the system by providing the cluster with distributed memory that also makes failover scenarios much easier to handle. It's an interesting read.

The Collaborative Methods blog has seen an update in which Varun Parmar, the AFCS Product Manager, is asking for feedback on the proposed pricing models for AFCS (aka Cocomo). For those not in the know, AFCS stands for Adobe Flash Collaboration Service, a hosted service that provides real-time capabilities to Flex and AIR based applications. It runs on the Adobe Connect backend and provides a similar feature set to Adobe's own product (similar, yes, not identical but let's not go into that now ;-)

The proposed pricing models are, as you can imagine, fairly complex since they aim to support a variety of different usage models as well as data intensive or messaging intensive applications. The proposed models will include par per use pricing as well as a zero upfront costs, both of which are plus points in my book. What remains to be seen is how the running costs of AFCS compare to something like FMS, especially for smaller apps that do not require the infinite scalability of a cloud based service.

I cannot remember a time in which Adobe would ask its customers for feedback on proposed pricing *before* the product was fully released and I would therefore urge everyone to voice their opinions on the proposed pricing models now. Note that actual figures on price points have not yet been made public, but as Varun outlines this will happen in the not too distant future.

Don't worry, this is not going to be another episode of me harping on about the need for screensharing in Flash, and AFCS in particular. But it is about a little discovery I made when working with AFCS (top secret project ;) over the last week or two.
I needed to extend the SharedWhiteBoard component and prevent it from connecting automatically when it was added to the display list. That turned out to be pretty easy, and whilst scrolling through the list of AFCS classes in Eclipse to pick out SharedWhiteBoard I found this:

There are several classes which, judging by their names, have some role to play during a screen share session.
Unfortunately the sources for those classes are not included with the AFCS SDK, instead these are baked into the SWC. The source code that is available however also makes a few loose references to screensharing, and the grouping and managing of screenshare-originated streams.

So who knows, maybe the foundations for screensharing are being laid. One can hope.

The wait is over: Adobe have just announced the official name for what was the service code named Cocomo. The official name is now Adobe Flash Collaboration Service (which in short would make it AFCS, or even shorter FCS - ring any bells? :).

Adobe describes AFCS as follows: "Adobe Flash Collaboration Service is a Platform as a Service that allows Flex developers to easily add real-time social capabilities into their RIA (Rich Internet Applications). Comprised of both Flex-based client components and a hosted services infrastructure, Adobe Flash Collaboration Service allows you to build real-time, multi-user applications with Flex in less time than ever before. And because Acrobat.com hosts the service, issues like deployment, maintenance, and scalability are taken care of for you."

I personally love real-time capabilities in web apps and AFCS (just like FMS) really excites me. I have a long list of ideas that I'd love to build with it. What's tricky right now is picking the right tool for the job. My current tool of choice is FMS and has 90% of the features I need in a real-time enabled web app. The developer workflow may not be best with FMS still stuck at AS1 on the server side and very limited APIs for the outside world to talk to it, but most of the time I can build what I want with it.

Nigel Pegg recently posted about how to use RTMFP in Cocomo. I really want to get more to grips with Cocomo so I spent the morning setting up the provided examples and generally reading up on the docs. Cocomo is a very exciting technology, but I think Adobe *must* add both screensharing as well as recording capabilities to the platform. Without both of those features it will seem like a watered down version of Connect, and not something that's on par.

Actually this reminds me - I've had two separate clients ask me about the relationship between Connect Pro, Acrobat Connect Now and Cocomo. While I know what Cocomo is and does I never thought about Connect Pro and Acrobat Connect Now. In fact I didn't even know they were two separate products or services... What both clients told me was that they really like the Connect Now UI (I think this is what previously code named Brio) but did not like the more expensive Connect Pro so much. However paying extra to lift the limit on Connect Now does not seem to be possible. Very weird, and a slightly fragmented setup. Adobe is missing a trick here since users are not getting what they want. Maybe connect Pro will be updated to have the Connect Now UI sometime soon? If not then Cocomo may be your best bet - roll your own look and feel - but of course we need those aforementioned features...

Sorry I got sidetracked there... the reason for this blog post is a different one. While I was playing with the Cocomo SDK I followed the instructions to set up Flex Builder (FB). I added the Flash Player 10 Cocomo SWC to my library path and also added the source code to the source path, according to the Cocomo docs:
Setting the source path for debugging
If you'd like to use Cocomo's supplied source code to help with debugging:
1. Choose the Source path tab.
2. Choose Add Folder...
3. Navigate to /src/.
4. Choose OK.

If after that you try and use the protocol property on the AdobeHSAuthenticator class however FB will complain about that property not being present on AdobeHSAuthenticator. I figured that FB was likely looking at the source rather than the SWC, so I removed the sources again from my project. Bingo, that worked and FB stopped complaining, my project compiled and I can now use RTMFP in my Cocomo rooms.
I figured I'd post this here to help others but also ask: is it possible to have both the sources and the SWC added to FB to aid with debugging, but have FB pick the 'right' code, in this case the SWC?

Just a quick note in case you've missed it, Cocomo is now up on Adobe Labs. Give it a spin.

Finally a conference on my doorstep! Tomorrow afternoon I will be hosting a session on 'Collaboration with Flash Media Server' at the European eLearning Summit in Nottingham. I am hoping to show lots of examples and allow the audience to join in - may the WIFI be with us.

Later this year (but not much later actually...) I will present a similar session at Flash on the Beach, the main difference being that the session in Brighton will have a bit more of a focus on code as well as a some inspirational pieces.
If you attend either one of the conference then please find me and say hi.

I've just arrived at b.TWEEN08 in Manchester.

The official line about the event is as follows: b.TWEEN is a unique cross media gathering where interactive ideas are seeded, shared and sold.
(It uses technology in innovative ways and radical formats to deliver cutting edge, interactive events with networking and business at their core.
b.TWEEN is about knowledge sharing, being inspired, learning from peers and doing deals.

My company muchosmedia has built the text chat that runs alongside the live webcast (all the streaming is being handled by our friends at Kinura). What's unique about the chat is that we've come up with and built a gateway to allow the audience to take part in the chat (which is projected onto a big screen at the venue) via sending an SMS text message to a dedicated number. I'll post some images as soon as I can.

The next version of Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro (I still haven;t figured out why they had to name it Acrobat) has been announced and will be available towards the end of the month. The full press release is here.

As you may know, Connect is built on top of FMS and leverages most of its features. Presenters can also run a special version of the Flash Player which features screen sharing capabilities, amongst other things.

Adobe have launched the public beta of BRIO, the codename for their next version of Adobe Connect, formerly Breeze. All you FMS heads out there know that Breeze and Connect owe a lot to FMS, upon which it is based.
In BRIO it appears that the Adobe engineers have rebuilt the UI in Flex and so far it looks quite promising. I encountered a few bugs such as my iSight not getting detected and the screensharing addin throwing an error upon first install but these problems are to be expected with an early beta.
You can sign up for the beta here or also try jumping onto the Cocomo (I told you I'd stop camelcasing it) prerelease via this page.

I've given up on the camel casing (CoCoMo - for the last time) by now but if you are (like myself) still interested in giving one of Adobe's upcoming technologies a spin then look no further than the private beta application here.
And if you thought that this was good news then brace yourself for more...

Here is a really interesting demo by Nigel Pegg covering the next version of Adobe Connect which features a totally overhauled UI built in Flex. Nigel is also showing the upcoming CoCoMo service which allows developers to leverage the Connect backend using a set of Flex component that will enable developers to built custom collaboration applications - in many ways similar to FMS applications.
I won't be starting a rant here and I've mentioned previously that CoCoMo is both exciting and scary at the same time. Combined with the features outlined for Pacifica it seems that pretty much everything that FMS provides right now in terms of capabilities (apart from the video delivery features) will also be provided by either CoCoMo or Pacifica. I have yet to make up my mind whether this a good thing or not.
I've just returned from MAX and I have some more info on Pacifica and CoCoMo shortly, alongside details of Adobe's upcoming DRM solution for Flash video. Stay tuned.

We all know that Adobe is pushing put new products and services at an insane rate these days. Apart from announcing Share at MAX in Chicago there were two other products which caught my attention and which are very exciting and a bit scary at the same time: Pacifica and CoCoMo.
Let me summarize what I know so far about these two products/services and then tell you why I think some of it is a little scary.

It's not the first time I've won something I must admit - about 20 years ago I remember winning a coffee mug that had two legs to stand on... I had to send a postcard then, no email for me back then. Unfortunately the mug broke a few months later.
Fast forward to 2006 and here I am, proud winner of the Icebreaker/Gaming apps category of the Adobe Connect (formerly Breeze) Sync Swf contest with my entry of Just Letters.
What can I see - this is brilliant. But I won't rub it in... however I am now considerably richer than yow ;-)