FME Server Stream Reader/Writer

Licensing options for this format begin with FME Professional Edition.

Note: Usage of the FME Server Stream reader or writer requires that you are also running FME Workbench, and that you have a running FME Server that can be reached by your machine through the network.

Overview

The FME Server Stream reader and writer allow FME Desktop applications such as FME Workbench to exchange features with FME Server. Different than other formats, the reader and writer of the FME Server Stream format are tightly coupled and need to work together with FME Server.

Reader Overview

The FME Server Stream reader allows a user to connect to an FME Server, browse repositories and specify an FME workspace. If the workspace contains an FME Server Stream writer, the reader will obtain the destination feature types from the workspace.

The basic reading process involves submitting an FME transformation job to the FME Server using that workspace and receives the features streamed from the FME Server by TCP/IP connection.

The features produced by this reader are identical to the features written to FME Server Stream writer in the workspace being run.

Writer Overview

The FME Server Stream writer streams features to FME Server Stream reader via TCP/IP connection. While making a connection, the reader works in ESTABLISH mode and the writer works in CONNECT mode.

Typical FME Server Stream Workflow

The following steps show a typical workflow for this format:

Step 1a A user creates an FME workspace which reads from any FME supported format and writes to the FME Server Stream format. When the workspace is completed, the user publishes it to FME Server.
Step 2a

The user opens another FME workspace and adds an FME Server Stream reader. In the reader's parameters dialog, the user needs to specify the host name and port of the FME Server along with user name and password to make a connection. When the connection is successful, the user can browse the repositories on the FME Server and choose the workspace created in step 1. Upon completing the parameters configuration, the FME Server Stream reader will obtain the destination feature types from the specified workspace.

The user can continue authoring this workspace as usual, such as adding transformers and writers. When FME runs this workspace, the FME Server Stream reader will submit a transformation job using the specified workspace to the FME Server. When the job is running, the FME Server Stream writer will make a TCP/IP connection to the FME Server Stream reader and stream features to the reader.

Step 2b The user opens the FME Universal Viewer and chooses the FME Server Stream reader. Similar to step 2a, the user needs to configure the workspace on FME Server through the reader's parameters dialog. When the FME Universal Viewer opens the reader, the reader will submit a transformation job and cause the features to be streamed to the FME Universal Viewer through TCP/IP connection.

Note: Step 2a and 2b are two independent steps. Users can run either one step or both steps. They illustrate how FME Server Stream can be used within different FME Desktop applications.