1. Sockets vs P2P
Communication on the Flash Platform

2. Aaron Boushley
› Senior Developer at ZaaLabs, Ltd.
› www.zaalabs.com
› aaron@zaalabs.com
› @boushley

3. Forms Of
Communication
› Sockets
› NetConnection + NetGroup
› HTTPBased
» WebService (SOAP)
» HTTPService (REST)
› RemoteObject (AMF)

4. High Level --
Sockets
› Client-Server Architecture
› Flash Independent
› Requires a server of some kind

5. High Level -- P2P
› Peer to Peer Communication
› Adobe specific implementation (RTMFP)
› No server required*, all clients can
communicate
*P2P Setup requires a server or ip multicast to maintain the mesh.

6. Code Time...

7. Basic Sockets

8. War Games
WOPR example by Nate Beck

9. P2P Chat
› Example by Tom Krcha
› http://www.flashrealtime.com/simple-chat-p2p-netgroup-rtmfp/
› Great demonstration of the basics of P2P

10. Forms Of
The IP Stack

11. TCP vs UDP --
FIGHT!
TCP UDP
› Header Size: 32 Bytes › Header Size: 20 Bytes
› Guaranteed Order › No Guarantee on Order
› Guaranteed Delivery › No Guarantee on Delivery
› Uses Triple Handshake › Single Packet
› IP Header Size: IPv4 ->16 Bytes IPv6 -> 40 Bytes

12. Protocols
› The RTMP Family (RTMP, RTMPT, RTMPS,
RTMPE, RTMFP)
› AMF (Socket#writeObject/readObject)
› SOAP, Plain XML, JSON
› Custom (Hopefully bit packed)

13. Custom
AMF
JSON
XML
SOAP

14. Custom Packing -
Hex Binary
05 00000101
First Second Third

15. Custom Packing -
Integer
Hex Decimal
00 00 04 D2 1234

16. Custom Packing
Encode
Decode

17. Sockets vs
› Communication is (more) private › Can function purely with Flash
› Gets through most firewalls › Broadcasts are simpler and
Bandwidth Efficient

18. Private
Communication
› Sockets send packets directly to recipient
› P2P requires directing code
» Example
» http://www.flashrealtime.com/directed-routing-
explained-flash-p2p/
› Encryption for security over the network
» AS3Crypto -- https://code.google.com/p/as3crypto/

19. Sockets + P2P =
<3

20. ZaaMulti

21. Questions?
http://github.com/