Some days ago, the Nebulas team released the latest development progress of Nebulas v2.0 - Nebulas NOVA. Based on the previously published roadmap, the Nebulas technical team has improved the performance of NBRE which is the Nebulas Blockchain Runtime Environment as well as the shared memory interprocedural communication framework, NEB communication process and protocol, as well as the deployment plan for NBRE, etc.

As an important part of Nebulas NOVA, NBRE has attracted a lot of attention from the community, and some have expressed more interest and even confusion about it. We would like to take this time to offer a detailed interpretation of it.

According to the Nebulas technical team, NBRE has two core functions:

1. NBRE is the execution environment for Nebulas core protocols and core algorithms (such as NR, DIP).

NBRE includes the JIT (just-in-time compilation) module of LLVM. The core protocols and algorithms are stored in the form of LLVM intermediate representation (IR), and the JIT compiler will load the relevant protocol or algorithm code at runtime, then execute and export the results.

2. NBRE is the foundation of core protocols and algorithm upgrades.

When a core protocol or algorithm needs to be upgraded, we can deploy a new version on chain through a trusted and secure mechanism. NBRE will automatically acquire and execute the core protocol or algorithms latest version at runtime which in turns upgrades the protocol or algorithm.

Here is a detailed image of the above two core functions:

If you still have questions, please continue reading.

If we compare blockchain to a running train, then blocks on the chain are like carriages, and transactions in the blocks are like passengers on the train.

In the past, if the train broke down, we need send the train to factory for repair and in our case, the factory is NEB (Official Go implementation of the Nebulas protocol). Sending the train to a factory is very troublesome and will have some effect on passengers. Therefore, we often hear news that the security system is being upgraded and all transactions are suspended.

Nebulas has made some innovation on this process and its moving parts (NR, DIP) to repair the train without it ever stopping. When the train requires repairs, NBRE is the repairer.

Ideally, when our technology is mature enough and NBRE is fully realized, smooth upgrades will be achieved without affecting normal transactions since the upgrades are already stored on the train and simply need to be utilized.

In the future, the Nebulas technical team will complete tests of NBRE’s stability, security and performance as well as improve the relevant functions, so as to lay a solid foundation for the realization of the Nebulas core technical features including NR and DIP. This is an important step for the realization of Nebulas NOVA which is scheduled to be released on December 31, 2018.

Above is the brief introduction of NBRE. If you still have some questions, or suggestions, you can directly communicate with our technical team on Github.