Maretron INTERNET PROTOCOL GATEWAY IPG100 - Manual (Page 7)

Revision 1.2 Page 3
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1.7 General Concepts
1.7.1 Client/Server Architecture
The N2KView
®
Vessel Monitoring and Control System is based on a client/server architecture.
In this context, a server is defined as a component that provides services over a network and a
client is defined as a station that requests and uses those services.
Within the N2KView
®
System, there is one server (called N2KServer
®
) and one or more
stations or clients (called N2KView
®
). The server component is implemented by either an
IPG100 or N2KServer
®
software running on a Windows PC, and the station or client
components are implemented by the N2KView
®
software. N2KView
®
software may run on a
Windows PC, Mac, or Maretron’s MBB100 or DSM800. Mobile versions of N2KView
®
software
are available for iPod, iPhone, iPad and Android devices. The service offered by the server to
the stations (clients) is access to the NMEA 2000
®
network data that the server receives from
the NMEA 2000
®
network via its NMEA 2000
®
gateway. The network over which this service is
offered is implemented as a TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) network,
which is discussed in the next section.
1.7.1.1 Examples of NMEA 2000
®
Client/Server Architectures
N2KServer
®
may run on a Windows PC (using Maretron’s USB100 gateway - see Figure 2 and
Figure 3) or N2KServer
®
may run directly on an IPG100 (see Figure 4).
Figure 2 – LAN Client/Server Architecture Example with USB100
Figure 2 shows an example of a Local Area Network (LAN) connection including the PC to
NMEA 2000
®
network connection through a USB100 gateway. A copy of N2KServer
®
must run
on the PC connected to the USB100, and an N2KView
®
Hardware License Key must be
plugged in to the PC to supply sufficient licenses for the maximum number of simultaneously
connected clients. N2KView
®
clients may run on either the PC connected to the USB100, or to
another PC connected to the router, or to a laptop or mobile device connected wirelessly.