2. Architectures

2.1 System architecture and software

Since video and media servers are first and foremost IT equipment integrated into an IT environment, it's important to remember a few basic concepts.

Server-based systems are built on either a centralized or distributed architecture. A distributed architecture can be either client-server, service-oriented or, more rarely, peer-to-peer.

• Centralized architecture is the simplest (figure 2 ). It ranges from a server on...