NULS Blockchain Enterprise Solutions — A Modular Infrastructure Perspective
The hottest topics of 2018 in the blockchain industry are business applications. In order to achieve this goal; people engaged in the blockchain have made different efforts in different aspects. The original intention of NULS is to enable the blockchain to carry different commercial applications. In order to realize this vision, NULS has taken the route to construct predictable technical demand, instead of guessing the possibility of business development in the future. In the following article, the NULS Chinese community will demonstrate to us the technical thinking accumulated by NULS for corresponding application, from technical implementation of 5 aspects, such as modularization, multi-chain parallelism, cross-chain consensus, smart contract, and consensus mechanism.
As is well-known to everyone, Bitcoin is very sophisticated from the point of its logic and code. The reason why people criticize its expansive nature is that they have forgotten that its original design is just a peer to peer payment tool. During the inception stage of NULS the team took into account the rapid development of the business world and even its unpredictability. Therefore, NULS would rather build an infrastructure that can accompany the rapid development of the business world, than make restrictions by speculating on the commercial business needs. The obvious advantage of this infrastructure is sustainable upgrades. The business world in the future is unpredictable and fast paced, let alone the development of technology!
Modular design at the current stage can enable the blockchain technology to upgrade continuously along with the change of the business world. The following picture shows the NULS modular implementation path from the underlying architecture to the application layer.
To achieve a modular framework, the business logic layer, which contains the basic logic of program execution is needed first. Basic module layer of the blockchain is generated based on the code layer. There are five basic module types, including consensus mechanisms, storage, networks, ledgers, and smart contract.
Establishing modular standards and unifying all interface standards is a crucial step during the design of modules. Only after the standards are established can the module become a universal tool. Taking the consensus mechanism module as an example, Proof of Credit (POC) and Proof Of Work (POW) are two different consensus mechanisms. The function of the consensus mechanism module is to establish a common interface under different consensus mechanisms. With this interface (standard), the consensus mechanism can realize modular customized options, plug&play and quick compatibility with other modules. NULS provides a standard definition for a module in order for it to connect with the framework. A complete module definition consists of four parts: basic information, module services, module events, and module configuration. After the main network is released, NULS will provide detailed module specifications, tutorials, and demonstrations on how to use modules to build applications.
At the present stage, several major module standards (ledgers, consensus, storage, network and smart contracts) of NULS have been defined. And the NULS team will upgrade these standards accordingly with the development of the industry while maintaining the contents of the modules.
After the modularization standard is defined, the next layer is the chain layer, which is selected and combined by different modules into the NULS main chain. The same principle can also be used to form other sub-chains. The last layer is the business application layer. The ultimate goal for NULS is to design the first three layers to support the business application layer. In the figure above, there is an intermediate layer between the fourth layer and the third layer. The basis of this design is that there are some common requirements in the business application segmentation field. And these requirements can be abstracted and refined in terms of technology implementation, such as batch queries and high-speed storage in the anti-counterfeiting industry. NULS encapsulates these business functions (modularized output is available) and provides them directly to the application developer, for direct use when necessary. NULS has achieved a combination of blockchains for different industries from the business level.
In this four-tier structure, there is a specification (i.e., standard) for the link between each layer and the following layer to ensure that the level of flow is executable and smooth, which is one of the difficulties in modular construction.
The above is the introduction of the modular implementation path of NULS, and the advantages of NULS modular design will be summarized next:
- Upgrades can be sustained and modules can be upgraded independently . (No hard forks necessary, adaptable to future technological advancements)
- It is convenient for users to combine the contents under different modules to build and develop their own applications.
- NULS is an open source ecosystem. Developers can extend existing modules and create new modules for the public ecosystem or private use.
- When issues or bug/errors are found, they can be dealt with quicker.
