Implementing nontransparent redirection for MMS streaming

About Windows Media metafile rewriting

If you are not deploying transparent proxying for MMS, and your clients do not have Windows Media players that support proxy settings, you can direct requests to the streaming media cache by setting up Windows Media metafile rewriting.

Windows Media metafile rewriting provides a nontransparent way for you to direct MMS and other Windows Media type requests to the streaming media cache. Windows Media metafile rewriting works only with Windows Media streams from Windows Media servers.

To implement Windows Media metafile rewriting, your clients' Web requests must first be directed to a NetCache appliance configured as a Web cache. You configure the Web cache to add the IP address of the streaming media cache to the Windows Media pointer returned in a metafile by the Web server. All Windows Media requests are then directed to the streaming media cache instead of the streaming server.

Windows Media metafile rewriting example

The following example illustrates Windows Media metafile rewriting. In this example, one NetCache appliance has been configured as a Web cache and another NetCache appliance has been configured as a streaming media cache.

Note that client requests for streaming media originate from within the Web browser and are redirected to the NetCache appliance configured as a Web cache.

The request flow shown in the preceding example can be explained as follows:

A client initiates a Web request for streaming media.
The Web cache forwards these streaming requests to the Web server.
The Web server returns a streaming URL to the Web cache.
The Web cache inserts the IP address of the streaming media cache into the beginning of the streaming URL and returns it to the client.
Because of the metafile rewriting, the request for streaming media is redirected to the streaming media cache.
If the content is not cached, the streaming media cache fetches the content from the origin server and delivers it to the client.