Streaming is a mechanism to dispatch contents of multimedia type (video, audio, and animations) through a corporate network or through Internet, to a monitor (player) located in the PC of the final user.

The contents to dispatch in streaming mode can be visualized of almost immediately, so that the client does not have to wait until is fully downloaded. That is why streaming is employed, in many cases, for live events' direct emission. Examples are the punctual retransmission of news, sports, concerts, etc., and the continuous emission of television and radio shows.

Also exists the possibility of storing multimedia contents in a server conveniently codified, to serve them under demand when a client requests it and as many times as desired. This is the so called content-on-demand, or "canned", employed for example for the retransmission of news and sports' reports, taped concerts, trailers, clips, product's demos, interviews, differed press conferences, etc.

The streaming service considers the following benefits:

Production of audio and video events.
Digitalization, edition, compression and codification process.
Hosting of multimedia information.
Ad hoc user interfaces' design for Web accesses. .

At the moment of selecting an adequate streaming platform, the factors to be considered are very varied, being the most important those related to:

Contents' production (source of the content, code to employ, parameterization of the same, desired final quality, etc.)

Contents' publication (important aspects here are such as storage, property rights, efficacy of the connection, etc.)

Dispatch and distribution. The critical elements to consider refer to bandwidth by stream, total bandwidth, times of startup, optimum distribution of contents in the network, concurrent users, protocols, scalability, etc.

The architecture for streaming is integrated inside the general infrastructure of InterHost's centers, locating their components in different zones.

Contents' production. This aspect, itself, is not contemplated, given that we start from a series of files conveniently codified. The formats to employ are QuickTime and Microsoft Media Technologies and RealNetworks (in the future).

Contents' publication. Codified contents are transmitted through Internet. InterHost offers the publication's mechanisms according to the customer's directives. In the starter and planning phase is decided how to undertake this task.

Storage. Streaming contents will be duplicated in InterHost's server's files at the data zone. A filer's cluster of Network Appliance and a filer of EMC constitute this server. The service is highly redundant and of great capacity (various terabytes). The contents are in a secure zone and as fundamental advantage, the filers notably consolidate the storage upon permitting to serve files in native mode, so much to servers UNIX (NFS) as to WNT and W2000 (CIFS). Besides, thanks to its appliance technology, these systems are specifically designed for single tasks (the service of files) that execute with an extraordinary efficiency.