LPWAN Server Points of Extension

The LPWAN Server is intended to be an extensible framework, allowing for the addition of the following areas:

• Reporting Protocols - Code that takes raw data from a remote network and sends it to an application via some predefined communications model.

• Network Integrations - IoT networks will come and go. The Network Integration allows the basic central code in LPWAN Server to remain consistent and stable, while providing the flexibility to add new networks. Network Integrations are achieved via the following customizations:

  • Network Types - Definitions of IoT protocols. One of these definitions implies a set of data that any number of IoT networks would be able to use to configure the Applications and Devices for their own network.

  • UI Customizations - Code that can be plugged into the UI to allow for controlled data entry for the data for a particular Network Type.

  • Network Protocols - The code that can take a Network Type data model and use that data to manage the Applications and Devices on a remote network with a specific API.

Ultimately, a Network Type matches UI Customization code to a set of Network Protocols that communicate with a remote network API, using the data of a specific Network Type.

Network Protocol Extensions

A Network Protocol is the code that takes the data of a given Network Type and passes it to a remote network with a given API. The point is to have that remote network behave as if the data had been entered on that system directly.

Network Protocol Extensions can be found and added in the rest/networkProtocols/handlers directory off of the repository's root directory.

All Network Protocols extend provided JavaScript classes in order to share business logic. A Network Protocol should extend the class in the file networkProtcols/NetworkProtcol.js. From there, you can use additional inheritence for Network Types, versions, etc. The path to the new Network Protocol also needs to be added to the array at the top of networkProtocols/networkProtocols.js. Network Protocols are registered asynchronously, but in a sequential sequence, so one registration doesn't start until the completion of the previous registration.

Many Network Protcol methods receive an object referred to as dataAPI. This is defined in networkProtocolDataAccess.js, and is intended to be the means by which Network Protocols access LPWAN Server models.

Reporting Protocol Extensions

A Reporting Protocol is the code that receives data from a remote network and passes it off to the Application based on the entered URL.

Network Protocol Extensions can be found and added in the rest/reportingProtocols directory off of the repository's root directory.

All Reporting Protocols implement the same API to be used by the LPWAL Server. This API is found in the protocolhandlertemplate.js file, which should be copied to the file that is to serve as the Network Protocol handler. When configuring a new Reporting Protocol via the UI, you need only specify the file name (not the directory path) for this new file. Please see the README.txt in this same directory for additional information.