Rhaban Hark, Sten Grüner, Marco Ulrich ABB Corporate Research, Ladenburg, Germany
rhaban.hark@de.abb.com, sten.gruener@de.abb.com, marco.ulrich@de.abb.com
Put simply, the intention behind data spaces is to enable the sharing of data across different domains and organizations to foster new business models of data-driven services by overcoming limitations in terms of trust in existing infrastructures and accessibility of data. Having set this goal, initiatives – such as the International Data Space Association (IDSA) [1] and Gaia-X [2] – are working out relevant principles, standards and technical solutions. Catena-X [3] is an example of a first adoption of a data space emerging from this work.
When explaining data spaces, one should first clarify what they are not:
• Data spaces, such as Gaia-X, have been erroneously depicted as the European cloud-provider alternative to Google, Amazon, etc. They are not.
• Data spaces are neither just a collection of cloud storage services, nor a shared database creating a big data lake.
• Another common misunderstanding is that participation in a data space will simply make data accessible to anyone within this space. This assumption conflicts with one of the core principles of data spaces: data sovereignty.
So, what are data spaces, then? Data spaces are regulated environments that facilitate the provision and consumption of data and data-driven services while respecting core principles – such as openness, transparency, trust, data sovereignty, security and decentralization. Openness allows any party to join the space, while data sovereignty guarantees every data provider will keep full control of their data and any sharing thereof.
Considering Gaia-X as representative, the initiative develops technological and legal guardrails for future data-space concepts. The contributions are governed by a collection of documented principles, regulations and standards for technical solutions to connect data and services providers with consumers.
Participants in a data space must verify themselves and their offerings against the regulations by documentation, technical proof and audits to ensure trust towards other participants.
Initiatives such as Gaia-X specify generic technology building blocks, that allow the realization of data spaces. These blocks comprise so-called Federation Services and reference implementations. Federation Services help establish mutual trust between participants, create data or service contracts and facilitate rule-based data exchange. Federation Services are hosted by elected participants from the data space (not Gaia-X itself) who neither have access to any operational data nor can interfere with the bilateral data exchange between participants.
Apart from IDSA and Gaia-X, who ar the “rules of the game,” early adopters already exist: The most prominent of these being Catena-X, a data space focused on automotive supply chain participants. Catena-X relies heavily on open-source software – eg, Eclipse Dataspace Components (EDC) [5], which prepares technology blueprints for upcoming data spaces.
The maturity of Gaia-X and most adoptions, except Catena-X, is limited and it remains to be seen how implementations and uses of data spaces will evolve. One potential candidate of interest to ABB’s key industries is the up-and-coming Manufacturing-X, which will help establish a flexible, trusted and sovereign data ecosystem that allows the many advantages of digitalization – manifested by, for example, Industry 4.0 – to be fully exploited.
References
[1] IDSA publications: https://internationaldataspaces.org/publications/about-idsa/
[2] Gaia-X, “Vision & Mission.” Available: https://gaia-x.eu/what-is-gaia-x/vision-and-mission/. [Accessed July 1, 2023.]
[3] Catena-X, “The Vision of Catena-X.” Available: https://catena-x.net/en/vision-goals. [Accessed July 5, 2023.]
[4] Sovereign Cloud Stack, “About Sovereign Cloud Stack.” Available: https://scs.community/about/. [Accessed July 5, 2023.]
[5] Eclipse Foundation, “Eclipse Dataspace Components.” Available: https://projects.eclipse.org/projects/technology.edc. [Accessed July 5, 2023.]
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