Bluzelle Product Update #1 — October 31, 2017 (Happy Halloween!)
Bluzelle is a large, sophisticated, decentralized database that will be built over a number of releases that we plan to do every four months. The Bluzelle whitepaper defines the product releases, going over each of the distinct seven releases and describing what new features each will entail. With each such release, detailed information will be included, comprising of new features, bug fixes, usage documentation, etc.
Following each release (ie: during the development of the next release), interim builds will be provided to the community. These can be used exclusively on the Bluzelle testnet. This usage pattern will ensure that customers (ie: developers using Bluzelle) are actively engaged in the development pipeline, and are able to provide input. Operating on the Bluzelle testnet limits the consequences of any bugs in these “debug” builds to the testnet and not to the production network.
It is important to Bluzelle and its developer community for regular product updates to be released to the public. This development+feedback cycle allows developers to be able to get a head start with Bluzelle database integration into their own products, participate in testing, voice their opinions, and help steer the prioritization of product features.
Product update blogs such as this one will focus on interim milestones that help us reach each release. Bluzelle is already releasing regular builds automatically whenever new code is deployed to Github. These will automatically become available to the public, at all stages of development, for complete transparency.
The first major usable version of Bluzelle that is planned is called Lovelace. and will have the following attributes:
- C++ native node software that runs on Mac OS-X, Linux, and Windows
- All nodes will be deployed and operated by Bluzelle using its own infrastructure partnerships with Microsoft and British Telecom
- GUI client that connects to nodes via IP address and TCP port number and displays swarm configuration, allows some swarm configuration, and allows manual issuance of CRUD functions. GUI client can run in Mac OS-X, Linux, and Windows
- Operated purely as a testnet, referring to BLZ holdings on the Ropsten testnet
- Minimum stake of BLZ ERC-20 tokens will be needed to use the database, referring to balance on Ropsten
- No tokens will be earned or spent — the stake is merely there to ensure that only users with a minimum balance can use the CRUD API
- Single swarm (data is not sharded — all data is stored to every node), so data limits will be lower than for the final product, due to the 100% replication model
- RAFT consensus — there will be a leader for the swarm that can be democractically replaced if needed
- CRUD API to talk to the network and issue create, read, update, and delete requests on the single swarm. Initial API will respond to requests using JSON HTTP. Node.js API examples and code will be provided
- Ethereum smart contract, used for bootstrapping new nodes and the CRUD API so that both entities can easily find Bluzelle nodes on the single swarm to talk to. “Selected” nodes will update the smart contract with their IP and port, as needed, to act as bootstrapping jumping-off points
- Key-value pair support — users will be able to work with key-value pairs, which is also the basis of the April 2018 MVP
- Code will be licensed under the GNU Affero GPL license, and available on a public Github repository owned by Bluzelle
Lovelace will be a major event for Bluzelle and be the first time developers (external to the Bluzelle team) will be able to interact with and use the Bluzelle database, in its limited form, on the Bluzelle testnet.
Bluzelle will be releasing further product update blogs like this one as the end of 2017 approaches, with the plan being for Lovelace to become available to the public by the end of 2017.
The codebase for Bluzelle will always be publicly available, as will be the debug builds, that the public is free to look at, download, run, etc. Please use the code responsibly, and as per the terms of the license.
We welcome any feedback in our Telegram Group.
