Wowza for Amazon EC2

Welcome to the Wowza Media Server EC2 Support Center! This site is designed to help you get started and keep you going with Wowza Media Server for Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2). Amazon EC2™ is a web service from Amazon that provides resizable compute capacity in the cloud. Amazon EC2 is a cloud-computing platform that virtualizes computing resources as virtual machines. A single virtual machine configuration is registered as an Amazon Machine Image (AMI). Wowza Media Systems provides public Amazon Linux AMIs with pre-configured and tuned versions of Wowza Media Server® that are ready to start using the Amazon Web Services™ (AWS) Management Console. You can use these AMIs as needed to launch Wowza Media Server for EC2 instances, paying for your running instance time and bandwidth consumption only while the instances are running. You can launch Wowza Media Server instances in specific geographical locations that are closer to your audience to reduce latency and in multiple geographical locations to provide high levels of redundancy.

Getting Started

If you aren't familiar with how Wowza Media Server works, we recommend that you install it locally on your computer and run through the included examples. You can get a free 30-day trial license for Wowza Media Server 3.5 by completing a request form on the Wowza Media Server 3.5 Trial webpage. The Wowza Media Server 3.5 Trial Edition download includes the Wowza Media Server software, all premium AddOns, documentation, and examples. To get the local server up-and-running quickly, you can use the Wowza Media Server Quick Start Guide and our Tutorials. The Wowza Media Server User's Guide contains more comprehensive documentation about how to install and use the server.

Deploying Wowza Media Server for EC2 Instances

To use Wowza Media Server for Amazon EC2, you must have an Amazon Web Services (AWS) account. Go to the Wowza on Amazon AWS webpage to create an AWS account and to learn more about the available licensing model options for Wowza Media Server for Amazon EC2.

After you've created an Amazon AWS account, follow the instructions in the Wowza Media Server for Amazon EC2 Quick Start Guide to launch your first Wowza Media Server for EC2 instance and stream a sample video. For more extensive deployment documentation, see the Wowza Media Server for Amazon EC2 User's Guide.

Getting Help

Wowza Media Systems supports Wowza Media Server for Amazon EC2 just like the regular product. You can get free support either by visiting the Wowza Media Server forums or by sending an email message to support@wowza.com.

The Wowza Media Server forums are a great resource of information about how to install and use Wowza Media Server. To find a simple solution quickly, we recommend that you search the forums for any issue you may have.

When emailing support@wowza.com, be sure to indicate the nature of your request in the Subject line and include the following information in the body of the email message:

• Wowza Media Server version and build number
  
• Platform, operating system, and Java version on which Wowza Media Server is running
  
• Detailed problem description that includes:
  
  • URL of tutorial or instructions being used
    
  • Player technology being used (Adobe Flash, Microsoft Silverlight, iOS device, set-top box, etc.)
    
  • Live encoder/IP camera manufacturer/version and exact encoding settings (live streaming only)
• We also recommend that you send [install-dir]/logs, [install-dir]/conf, and [installdir]/transcoder folders in a compressed (zipped) folder. See How to create a compressed zip file in Windows, Mac OS and Linux.

Amazon handles billing and payments, and software charges that appear on your monthly AWS billing statement. This includes billing for Amazon EC2 instance usage and bandwidth consumption, Amazon Simple Storage Services™ (Amazon S3), and Wowza Media Server charges that accrue when using the DevPay licensing model. Wowza Media Systems has no insight into how the AWS billing system works. To address Amazon-related billing issues, you must Sign-in and Contact AWS Support. For additional information about Amazon Web Services, see the AWS Support Center.

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