View source for What is BrandMeister ← What is BrandMeister

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== What is BrandMeister? ==
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BrandMaster/BrandMeister is an operating software for Master servers participating in a worldwide infrastructure network of amateur radio digital voice systems.
* If you are an amateur radio operator working in digital voice modes like D-Star, DMR, C4FM, APCO P25 or others (not all are supported yet!!). You do not need to know much about BrandMeister, and it's very easy to operate on its infrastructure.
* If you are an amateur radio operator that runs a repeater in your local area, you may be interested in learning some more about BrandMeister and how you can take part in it.
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A brief overview of BrandMeister core features:
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* Switching system for IP-enabled conventional Tier-2 DMR radio
* Supports the most known network-access and end-user equipment making it easily expandable
* Performs switching on the Layer 3 (Call Control) of the DMR stack
* Has an embedded data stack (Layer 4)
* Has embedded data and voice applications
* Flexible routing based on data stored in a global database, local memory cache, and Lua scripts
* Event notification using messaging queues (calls, connections, alarms, messages, locations and telemetry)
* Implements mesh-topology for inter-node communications
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BrandMeister allows you to connect to MOTOROLA [[CBridge|DMR-MARC]] and Hytera [[WinMaster|DMRplus]] networks, this means you can operate with other DMR amateur radio operators on both infrastructures at the same time.

== BrandMeister allows me… ==
* To roam automatically from repeater to repeater
* To make private QSOs on any time-slot
* To make world-wide QSOs with any type of amateur DMR network
* To send my location to [[APRS]]
* To send and receive SMS messages
* To send and receive SMS messages to or from [[APRS]]
* To control some electrical apparatus using my DMR radio as a remote control device

== Embedded Applications ==
* Common-use applications:
** Interactive voice response for status messages (with support for 5 languages),
** Signaling expansion (UU-Req/UU-Resp)
** Automatic registration/roaming ([[Hytera/RRS|Hytera RRS]])
** [[AuthPatch|Auto-patch]] call gateway
** SMS gateway (vendor independent, supporting ETSI/Hytera/Motorola)
** [[IPBridge|IP bridge]]
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* Examples of some Amateur Radio usage applications:
** [[D-STAR]] D-Extra to talking group gateway
** [[D-STAR]] G2 call routing to private call gateway
** [[APRS]] position and telemetry reporting
** [[APRS]] text message gateway
** AMPR access service
** Gateway for [[EchoLink]] or any other IP-based PTT applications

== Architectural principles ==
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The general architecture of BrandMeister consists of three different layers:
* the first layer provides drivers for frontend/radio interfaces like Hytera Repeaters, Motorola repeaters, UP4DAR, homebrew repeaters 
* the second layer is built by the logical kernel with an implemented routing mechanism
* the third layer consists of interfaces supporting communication service protocols to the WAN (IPSC, CC-Link, APRS, XRF)
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All BrandMeister Master servers communicate with each other through the BrandMeister FastForward (FF) high-speed protocol.
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* BrandMeister is only a front-end application that works in real-time
* All business logic to distribute routing lists and user profiles implemented outside of BrandMeister like a set of back-end applications and scripts
* BrandMeister supports multiple sources of routing information: [[Scripting|scripts]], databases, in-memory cache, configuration files at the same time
* Web applications and diagnostic tools are also separated out from the main program
* BrandMeister uses event-driven mechanisms (MQ) to notify backends about events, in-memory data storage and relational database to get location, routing and user profiles
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We are in the process of implementing mesh-based distributed network storage which will allow all network servers will be equivalent nodes. 
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This is a prerequisite to maintain high availability of the network and will help keep the infrastructure more resistant to temporary or permanent loss of single nodes.
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