After doing some research on live broadcasting events using streaming video, I happened to come across a beta Adobe product called Stratus which builds upon Adobe’s RTMP. Not to confuse RTMP (Real Time Media Protocol) with RTMFP (Real Time Media Flow Protocol), RTMFP is a new communication protocol built by Adobe that will let users connect and communicate using P2P between multiple clients running a Flash or Adobe AIR application.

Stratus as defined by Adobe…

Stratus is a hosted rendezvous service that aids in establishing communications between Flash Players or Adobe AIR endpoints using RTMFP. Flash Player endpoints must stay connected to the server during the entire time of communications. Unlike Flash Media Server, Stratus does not stream video or support media relay, shared objects, or scripting. Stratus is being made available as a beta service through Adobe Labs to allow our developer community to begin building applications using RTMFP.

…which basically states that Stratus can be used in combination with Flash Media Server to allow for developers to easily connect a small amount of users (at the moment) directly instead of through the Flash Media Server using peer-to-peer technology.

Flash Media Server is built to support client to server communication. Stratus breaks free of that structure and allows client to client communication. This is a great starting point for Flash and P2P application development.

Unfortunately, this system was not intended to create an infinitely scalable MMORPG, although, there are some variables within the Stratus environment that will allow you to push the user limit over the default of 5.

Adobe’s first iteration of RTMFP is really only a taste of what is to come, and is only a glimpse into the Flash world of P2P.

Here are some tutorial resources I’ve put together. Feel free to leave any that you have also found helpful in learning how to effectively use Stratus.

Stratus Home Page
Get A Stratus Developer Key
Adobe Labs Stratus FAQ
Adobe Labs Stratus Sample Application w/source
Tutorial and Downloadable Files from Influxis.com
Stratus Application Using PHP/MySQL
Stratus, Python, and File Sharing
Stratus Basics