The guys over at Electrotank have finally announced the released of ElectroServer 4.0, (ES4)their massive update to their already impressive Electroserver 3 multi-player socket-server.   ES4 is more than just a simple version upgrade.  New features for ES4 include:

• 200,000 concurrent users.  Site like Webkins now get about 30,000 concurrent users using ES3.  ES4 spreads the load over multiple servers to support many more users.
• Video and Audio streaming.  One of the (only) advantages of Adobe’s server was audio and video streaming.  No more.  ES4 can do it, and at a fraction of the cost
• Encryption: ES4 uses highly secure algorithms to encrypt data from the client to the server.  This helps bust cheaters, and keep the privacy of legitimate users.
• Binary transmissions.  Data can be transmitted from client to server and server to client as binary.  This will increase throughput and help reduce processing time on both the client and server.

We have used ES3 for a couple games at Hotwheels.com.   Rebellion Race and the new Finish Line have been very successful with the older technology.  This new version of Electroserver should prove to make even better multi-player games within the grasp of Flash game developers.