Send a live stream to another WSE instance

Wowza Streaming Engine™ (WSE) stream targets allow you to distribute live streams to multiple destinations. For example, you can send a live stream from one WSE server to a second WSE server. This gives you flexibility in expanding and scaling your WSE implementation, computing resources, and delivery options.

This article explains how to configure two WSE servers so that you can send a live stream from one to the other over RTMP. To do so, you create a live application in each server instance, and send the stream from the first instance to the second by using the stream targets feature.

If you're using transcoder for adaptive bitrate streaming, you can enable it on the first WSE server and send the adaptive bitrate renditions to a target application on a second WSE server by creating a stream target for each rendition.

You can also transcode on the target application. Your first WSE server can ingest one high bitrate stream and send it to the target application for which transcoder enabled. This configuration is useful for distributing the transcoding workload and where uplink bandwidth to the source instance is limited.

Create a target app

Start by creating a live target application on the WSE instance that will deliver the live stream for final viewing.

1. Open WSE Manager.
2. Click the Applications tab.
3. Click Add Application.
4. On the Add Application page, select the Live application type.
5. In the New Application dialog box, enter a name for the application, such as liveTarget, and then click Add.
6. Click Save.

Create a source app

Next, create a live application that will ingest the live stream from an H.264 live encoder or camera. This live application on the source WSE instance will send the stream to the liveTarget application on the target Wowza Streaming Engine instance.

1. Open WSE Manager.
2. Click the Applications tab.
3. Click Add Application.
4. On the Add Application page, select the Live application type.
    
5. In the New Application dialog box, enter a name for the application, such as liveSource.
6. Click Add.
7. In the contents panel, click Stream Targets and enable stream targets.
8. In the contents panel, click Sources (Live).
9. Select the camera or encoder that you want to use as your video source, and connect it to Wowza Streaming Engine.

Create a stream target

After the source app and the target app are created, you are ready to create a stream target. The stream target will configure the source app stream to the target app. To do so, follow the steps below.  

1. Open WSE Manager.
2. Open the Applications tab.
3. Click the name of your source app.
4. In the contents panel, click Stream Targets.
5. Click + Add Stream Target.
6. Under Wowza Target Destinations, select Wowza Streaming Engine.
    
7. In the Wowza Streaming Engine configuration wizard, provide the following information:
    
   • Stream Target Name - A descriptive name for this target setup in Wowza Streaming Engine. The name must be unique and can't contain less-than (<), greater-than (>), colon ( : ), quotation (' and "), forward slash (/), backslash (), pipe (|), question mark (?), asterisk (*), double-dot (..), or tilde (~) characters.
      
   • Source Stream Name - The name of the incoming stream that you specified in Wowza Streaming Engine when you set up the video source.
      
   • Destination Application Name - The name of the application in the second Wowza Streaming Engine instance. In this article, it's liveTarget.
      
   • Destination Application Instance - The name of the application instance in the second Wowza Streaming Engine instance. Leave blank to send the stream to the default application instance (_definst_).
      
   • Destination Host - The hostname or IP address of the second Wowza Streaming Engine instance. You can find this information the Connection Settings panel on the Wowza Streaming Engine Manager Home page.
      
   • Destination Port - The port number for your connection. RTMP connections use port 1935 by default.
      
   • Destination Stream Name - The name of the stream that the stream target sends to the destination. Some destinations require you to use a specific stream name. If your destination requires a specific name, enter it in this field.
      
   • User Name and Password - The user name and password required to connect to the liveTarget application.
      
     
     

     Note: By default, WSE live encoders require a username and password to connect to a live application. The liveSource application is acting as an H.264 live encoder in this workflow, so the liveTarget application authenticates the liveSource application by default. For information on how to turn off authentication in the liveTarget application, see Managing live source authentication settings.
8. Click Add this target.

Transcoding source streams

If you're using transcoder in the source app, you must create a stream target for each rendition. Repeat the steps above for each rendition that you want to send to the target for adaptive bitrate playback. To create a stream target for each rendition, follow the steps below:

1. Create the first stream target, using the steps above.
2. Click the Copy icon.
3. In the new target, update the Stream Target Name, Source Stream Name, and Destination Stream Name. (We recommend including the bitrate in the Stream Target Name for clarity and uniqueness.)
4. On the Stream Targets page, click the Edit icon.
5. Click the Advanced tab.
6. Click Edit.
7. Set Adaptive Streaming to true, and then click Save.
8. Repeat for each stream rendition.

To enable playback of the adaptive bitrate set of streams on the target WSE instance, you must describe the bitrates that are available to players in a SMIL file. For details, see Stream adaptive bitrate content with Wowza Streaming Engine.

Test the connection

Configure your encoder and then test the live stream.

1. Start the stream in the H.264 camera or encoder that's publishing to the liveSource application in your first instance of Wowza Streaming Engine.
   
   The liveSource application ingests the stream and sends it to the liveTarget application on your second Wowza Streaming Engine instance.
    
2. In both the liveSource application and the liveTarget application, verify that the stream is working by clicking Incoming Streams in the contents panel in Wowza Streaming Engine Manager, and then clicking the stream name.
   
   The stream details page displays the Status of the stream (Active) as well as details about connections, uptime, and throughput for the live stream.
    
3. Click Stop Stream at the top of the live stream detail page to end your test stream, and then stop the stream in the source camera or encoder. 

More resources

• Use CDNs and services to distribute live streams from Wowza Streaming Engine
• Sample map file entries for Stream Target destinations (push publishing)