July 30, 2007: Updated this page to reflect current functionality.

Flash Media Server 2 is the newest version of Flash Communication Server. Flash Media Server 2 offers traditional data messaging capabilities and a flexible development environment for creating and delivering interactive applications. For example, you can use Flash Media Server to create and deliver a chat environment with ColdFusion.

To learn more about and to download the Flash Media Server, go to the Adobe website. at http://www.adobe.com/products/flashmediaserver/.

How ColdFusion and Flash Media Server interact through the FMS gateway

The FMS event gateway lets you modify data and reflect the change in the Flash Media Server shared object. The FMS event gateway listens to the shared object, and notifies ColdFusion when other clients modify shared objects. The FMS event gateway also lets ColdFusion modify shared objects.

FMSGateway is the class for the FMS event gateway type. You implement your FMS application by creating a ColdFusion application that uses an instance of the FMSGateway class to communicate with one or more Flash Media Server.

Modifying data in the Flash client

The FMS event gateway listens to Flash Media Server shared objects, and notifies ColdFusion when a shared object is modified by a Flash client. The following steps occur when a Flash client modifies a Flash Media Server shared object:

1. A user modifies data in the Flash client.
2. Flash Media Server updates the appropriate shared object.
3. Flash Media Server notifies the FMS event gateway.
4. The FMS event gateway calls the appropriate methods in CFCs in your ColdFusion application, which perform all actions required, including notifying the FMS Gateway Helper to update the shared object.
5. The FMS Gateway Helper sends a message to the FMS event gateway to update the shared object.
6. The FMS event gateway updates the shared object.
7. Flash Media Server notifies all the Flash clients that it modified the shared object. As a result, the Flash clients reflect the change.

The following image shows the interaction between Flash Media Server, the FMS event gateway, and the ColdFusion application:

Modifying data in a ColdFusion application

The FMS event gateway lets ColdFusion applications modify Flash Media Server shared objects. The following steps occur when data that affects a shared object is modified in a ColdFusion application:

1. The user submits a form that contains data to modify using a ColdFusion page.
2. The ColdFusion page calls the appropriate CFC, which contains a method to update the database.
3. The method in the CFC updates the database and calls a method in the FMS Gateway Helper.
4. The FMS Gateway Helper calls the FMS event gateway to update the appropriate shared object.
5. Flash Media Server updates the shared object.
6. Flash Media Server notifies the Flash client that a shared object has changed.
7. The Flash client makes the changes in its content as appropriate.

The following image shows the interaction between the ColdFusion application and Flash Media Server through the FMS event gateway: