Abstract
A typical scenario is where a client, located on a different network than the media server,
requests a video file located locally on the server. To serve this request, the media server,
sequentially, reads the file from disk, packs the data into a transport protocol of some kind
and sends it out on the net to the client. In the component based stream handler architecture, this process is split into three logical components; reading data, packing data and sending the data. The communication between these components are done using virtual functions. The problem we want to investigate is the cost of using the stream handler architecture and evaluate its performance against an alternative, stripped version, which uses no virtual functions. In the alternative version, the components that does the job of reading, packing and sending data to the client in the stream handler architecture, is merged together into a single component which then uses no virtual functions. A third version is also investigated which together with removing virtual functions also uses an alternative data path.