Wowza Streaming Engine (ARM Linux BYOL)

Wowza Streaming Engine is a configurable video streaming server that gives engineering teams full control over live and on-demand streaming infrastructure on Amazon EC2. Deployed in 170+ countries by Fortune 500 enterprises, government agencies, and broadcasters, it delivers proven reliability backed by a 20 year track record. This listing runs natively on AWS Graviton (ARM64) processors, which typically deliver better price-performance and lower energy consumption than comparable x86 instances.

What It Does

Ingests video from IP cameras, broadcast encoders, mobile devices, and file-based VOD sources, transcodes in real time, and delivers adaptive bitrate streams to any connected device. Sub-second latency for interactive use cases such as sports betting, auctions, and remote operations; adaptive bitrate with live-stream DVR for large-scale OTT and live events.

Supported Protocols

• Ingest: RTMP, RTMPS, RTSP, SRT, WebRTC, UDP, MPEG-TS
• Delivery: HLS, LL-HLS, MPEG-DASH, CMAF, WebRTC, RTMP, RTSP
• DRM: Widevine, FairPlay, PlayReady
• Security: token-based authentication, AES encryption, DRM content protection, audit logging

Key Capabilities

• Native ARM64 build - no emulation, full performance on Graviton
• Sub-second WebRTC delivery for interactive and real-time workflows
• CPU transcoding for adaptive bitrate streaming - capacity scales with instance size
• Live-stream DVR so viewers can rewind and catch up on live content

Extensibility and Integration

REST APIs, Java APIs, custom modules, and SDKs integrate with third-party video management systems, CDNs, identity providers, analytics engines, and storage. Webhooks, real-time alerting, and confidence monitoring provide visibility into stream health and system events.

Ideal Use Cases

• Cost-efficient delivery at scale: pass-through and ABR delivery workloads where Graviton price-performance compounds across a fleet
• Live events and OTT distribution: adaptive bitrate at scale to global audiences
• Surveillance and IoT: ingest thousands of RTSP camera feeds, transcode to HLS, and deliver to monitoring portals (state transportation agencies manage 1,300+ traffic cameras this way)
• Interactive streaming: sub-second latency for auctions, sports betting, and remote collaboration
• Training and webinars: one-to-many delivery with DVR and on-demand replay

Choosing an Instance Type

• Delivery and pass-through workloads: compute-optimized Graviton (c7g, c8g) - start with c7g.large or c8g.large and scale up
• Storage-heavy workloads: "d" variants (c7gd, c8gd) include local NVMe SSD for DVR caching and media storage

Getting Started on AWS

1. Launch the prebuilt Wowza ARM64 AMI in any EC2 region - start with c7g.large or c8g.large and scale up as your workload grows
2. Configure your security group to open required streaming ports
3. Access the Wowza Streaming Engine Manager web interface
4. Publish your first live stream - typical time from launch to first stream is several minutes

Requirements and What's Included

• Runs on: AWS Graviton (ARM64) instance types offered on this listing - see Choosing an Instance Type above
• Transcoding: CPU-based only - GPU acceleration is not available on Graviton instances
• Scalability: no hard concurrent-stream limit - capacity scales with instance size and workload
• Compliance: SOC 2 Type II - Wowza security measures 
• Included: live-stream DVR, DRM (Widevine, FairPlay, PlayReady), and all free AddOns

Next Steps

Explore the Wowza Streaming Engine EC2 documentation  to plan your deployment architecture, or contact Wowza Design Center for expert-led architecture review, performance tuning, and custom module development from certified streaming engineers.