Tabuleiro Nebulae MultiUser Server is a server application that runs on Linux, Solaris, MacOSX, FreeBSD and almost any Java-enabled operational system. Nebulae is 100% compatible with the Shockwave MultiUser protocol published by Macromedia, so movies authored for the Shockwave MultiUserServer version 2 and 3 can connect seamlessly to a Nebulae server, without modifications.

Java is emerging as the strongest platform solution for server applications that need to service hundreds or thousands of users at the same time. Macromedia and other vendors offer server products that work on top of the Java 2 platform, like ColdFusionMX. Nebulae is 100% pure Java code, including the database engine, and works with the any Java 2 platform VM (JDK 1.2 or later.) Nebulae provides an alternative to Shockwave developers that need to host multiuser movies in Unix systems, while preserving the investment made in learning the Shockwave MultiUser API.

All Shockwave MultiUser Server messages and commands can be used transparently with a Nebulae server, including DBObject functions. Nebulae includes a database engine so no database setup is required on the hosting machine, and database files are created and initialized automatically by the server. Nebulae also implement commands not available in the Shockwave MultiUser Server, like the ability to add banned user entries and ip addresses to the database and restart or shutdown the server remotely.

Nebulae can work transparently with TCP or UDP connections as well, when used with Director 8.5 Shockwave movies that support UDP connections. No special Xtra is required for your Shockwave movies to connect with a Nebulae MultiUser Server: Shockwave treats Nebulae connection just like regular Shockwave MultiUser Server 3 connections, using the same commands and protocols. The only command that returns a different result is "system.server.getVersion", and you can use this command to determine if extended Nebulae functions are available to your Shockwave movies.

The most important feature not supported by Nebulae in comparison with version 3 of the Shockwave MultiUser Server is server side Lingo scripting, since a Lingo interpreter is not available for other platforms. The server side scripting language used in Nebulae is Java: this is usually a more powerful solution for enterprise-level servers. More information about server side scripting is available in the Nebulae Online Help.