“In Many Cases, Media Servers Make or Break the Real-Time Video Application.”  

So it says in the beginning of the white paper “Building Real-Time Video Apps that Scale” written by BlogGeek.Me. I couldn’t agree more considering media servers are at the heart of real-time communication applications.

With respect to video and real-time communciations, there are various methods required to create the best video applications, depending on the application. One method is to use a centralized approach where differnet media formats may be transformed to single format and then sent out.  Another method is a decentralized approach where all end points communicate direclty with other endpoints – also known as a mesh approach.  And another approach is where a centralized server receives media from all endpoints and selectively sends streams out.  All are valid, depending on the application.  And because all are valid, the media server, central to all of this, needs to be able to handle all the different approaches. 

The picture above outlines 4 main real-time video use cases.  There are variations of each one, but one can argue these 4 are the 4 basic real-time use cases. And WebRTC is central to each one as well.

To read more, and to read how the Dialogic PowerMedia XMS media server is well suited for these approaches, please read the “Building Real-Time Video Apps that Scale” whitepaper.