What Happpened?
Recently, Wowza Video made some changes to the way analytic information is captured on streams using a Fastly Custom Origin Stream Target.
Why it Happened
You may have received an email like the one below, or similar information in a case response.
For new streams, we are simplifying the data model so that all data usage will be associated with the single, user-created target. Automatic “Stream Usage…” targets will no longer be created. As such, if data is required for each Wowza Streaming Engine stream, you should create a new Fastly Stream Targets with a Custom Origin for each stream individually and use the unique URL for streaming. Usage for that stream will then be recorded via the stream target that it is uniquely associated with.
For existing streams, usage will no longer be associated with any automatic “Stream Usage…” targets, and will instead be aggregated under the primary, user-created stream target. From the example above, usage for StreamOne and StreamTwo would be summed as a single quantity via the MyStreamTarget target. If you require only aggregate data for your use case, no changes are required. Alternately, if you require data on a per-stream basis, it will be necessary to create additional stream targets and pair these such that each is servicing a single stream.
This change simplifies the use model, while also optimizing the performance for usage reporting. Further, this will only impact data reporting, and in no way impacts how your usage is billed.
What is Impacted
Creation/Management
Existing Custom Origin Stream Targets, created via the Wowza Video UI, will still work.
New Custom Origin Stream Targets will be created via the Wowza Streaming Engine Manager UI.
Analytics
Existing Custom Origins will behave as they have been
New Custom Origin Stream Targets will only report aggregate analytics for all activity across the Custom Origin Stream Target. To isolate analytics to a single stream, a unique Custom Origin Stream Target will be needed for each stream.
Newly created Custom Origin Stream Targets will now be able to specify stream-specific URLs, whereas previously, only Host- and Application-level URLs were supported. This means Custom Origin Stream Targets can function in multiple ways, depending on configuration.
Host-level origin URL - able to pull all streams from all applications of a host
[protocol]://[host]:[port]
Application-level origin URL - able to pull all streams from the defined application of the defined host
[protocol]://[host]:[port]/[application]/[app-instance]
Stream-level origin URL - able to pull the defined stream from the defined application on the defined host.
[protocol]://[host]:[port]/[application]/[app-instance]/[stream]