Introduction To Edge Servers - MACROMEDIA BREEZE 5 - INSTALLING AND CONFIGURING EDGE SERVER Manual

Introduction to edge servers

Edge servers are configured to allocate and balance access to a Breeze server by using the
existing bandwidth resources more efficiently. Once the edge servers are deployed, users access
Breeze through their edge server. Edge servers authenticate these users and authorize their
requests for web services such as Macromedia Breeze Meeting rather than forwarding every
request to the Breeze server and consuming its resources for these tasks. If the data requested is
found in the edge server's cache, it returns the Breeze Meeting data to the requesting client
(the user's computer) without calling upon the Breeze server. This detour to the Breeze server
is transparent to users. In this scenario, no demands are placed on the origin Breeze server.
If the data requested is not found in the edge server's cache, it forwards the client's request to
the Breeze server, where the user is authenticated and the request for services authorized. The
Breeze server returns the results to the requesting edge server, which in turn delivers the results
to the requesting client. The edge server also stores this information in its cache, where other
authenticated users can access it. In this scenario, fewer requests for services are forwarded to
the origin Breeze server.
6 Macromedia Breeze Edge Server