ChirpStack is an open source project. 1
It's free to use if we install it on our own infrastructure. 2
If we check its documentation, we find out that it supports all regions, all end-device classes, 3
so A, B or C, and also supports the latest LoRaWAN specification. 4
Like all LoRaWAN servers, ChirpStack has a Network Server. 5
That's the main core of the LoRaWAN infrastructure. 6
But ChirpStack also provides an application server. 7
They are packaged together so we don't have to bother to install them separately. 8
What is new in this diagram is the entity in front of the Network Server, which is called the Gateway 9
Bridge. 10
We will see that this entity also exists in The Things Stack, which is the next LoRaWAN server we will install. 11
So it's not specific to ChirpStack. 12
In fact, this Gateway Bridge doesn't implement any additional LoRaWAN service, but it's only there 13
to simplify the message processing. 14
We saw earlier that the communication between the Gateway and the Network Server could be done with 15
many different protocols. 16
We spoke about UDP Semtech packet forwarder, Basic Station and others. 17
So the Gateway Bridge must know all these protocols. 18
It means that when we build a LoRaWAN server like ChirpStack, we have two solutions: 19
We can ask the Network Server to handle the communication with the gateway. 20
In that case, the Network Server itself must know all the packet forwarders it supports and keep alive 21
the communication with all gateways. 22
Otherwise, there is another solution. 23
Because when we built a complete infrastructure, we like to separate services. 24
So, instead of integrating the Gateway communication in the Network Server, then most of the time software 25
engineers decide to leave that job to a specific entity. 26
In our case, it's the Gateway Bridge. 27
And that's pretty interesting because if tomorrow ChirpStack decides to implement a new packet forwarder, 28
then they will be working on an update to the Gateway Bridge and not the Network Server. 29
The network server will focus only on the Lorawan stack, and that's exactly what it's been built for. 30
... 31
Okay. 32
And finally, on the right, we have the multiple interfaces with many Iot platform or user applications. 33
In chip stack, 34
we'll obviously find the MQTT and HTTP integration and of course for these two protocols we will make a 35
demonstration. 36
And finally, depending on Chirpstack partnership with other platforms, we'll be able to connect to 37
many other applications. 38
Okay, so now in the next video, we'll start the installation.