Activities of GAIA-X requirements engineering

The key elements of a data ecosystem according to GAIA-X: Frameworks and application of the basic communication fractal.

© GAIA-X Foundation

In joint meetings of over 170 participants from eight European countries, a phase of veritable Babylonian linguistic confusion initially developed regarding the necessities and needs of the most diverse kinds. This was - and still is - certainly due to the diversity of participants from a wide range of domains, such as energy, health, mobility, public administration, smart living, finance, Industry 4.0 and SMEs. The agricultural sector was added later. In total, over 40 use cases had already been compiled by mid-2020.

On June 4, 2020, the GAIA-X initiative was officially announced at an international media event led by the French and German Ministers of Economic Affairs. With the establishment of a foundation, the working groups of users and infrastructure providers are now to be given a home. In principle, the participants are pushing for the establishment of an open, neutral and non-profit-oriented interest group, which has fortunately already been implemented by the founding companies with the GAIA-X Foundation. In addition, there are to be national hubs in which members and users organize themselves: Currently, providers can be enabled to bring compliant products or services to the market in accordance with the GAIA-X standard via membership. Users can, but do not have to, become members of the Foundation.

Gerd Hoppe is in Corporate Management at Beckhoff Automation.

© Beckhoff

The work of the GAIA-X Foundation is not profit-oriented. Consequently, the work must be financed through minimal membership fees, graduated according to a company's revenue. The idea of non-discriminatory and SME/SME-supporting access to GAIA-X also plays an important role here. With this financial leeway, it may not be possible to build 'castles', but a small, solid and effective team can be established. Work is also being planned on various technical, regulatory and organizational topics with the help of further working groups with pro bono participation of interest groups and members from a wide range of domains.
The main task of the GAIA-X Core is to provide a small number of services that make it possible to implement the GAIA-X basic principles (see next page) for data exchange. In addition, administration is to be carried out on this basis.

Elements of the GAIA-X core functionalities

For this reason, the following areas of work were defined, in which a common framework is to be developed as the basis for very different standards in the user domains:

- IAM Framework

- Federated Catalog

- Data Broker/Data Connector

- Data Exchange Interoperability

- User Interface

- Accreditation, Registration, Self-Description Validation

- Conceptualizing Certification Process

- Continuous Monitoring

- Self Description

- Interconnection and Network

It is particularly exciting that no new and large uniform standard - which would then be unwieldy and unattractive - is planned. Instead, there is an agreement that the respective common standards of a domain should be built on top of a simple core layer. From the automation engineer's point of view, these are the standards commonly used in the manufacturing environment, all of which are accessible to automation technology.

The five basic principles of the GAIA-X Data Space

The GAIA-X Foundation does not want to generate a new uniform standard; instead, the respective common standards of a domain are to be based on a simple core layer. This GAIA-X core should only provide a few services that essentially guarantee the following five GAIA-X basic principles for data exchange.

1. openness and non-discrimination for the adaptation of all market participants:

- An open ecosystem across domains and value-added services in the form of a data- and service-exchanging network in which value-adding actions can be carried out.

- Organized centrally, decentrally and also heterogeneously in terms of geography, legislation and technology.

- Access from a local device, an edge computer, on local 'on-premise' clouds or central cloud systems.

- Exchange, enrichment, linking, analysis and evaluation of data across different security and application domains.

2. simple and unique identification and establishment of trust for participants in a federated structure:

- One click to participate using federated trust and identity management.

- Clear and comprehensible rules for participation and collaboration according to standardized and selectable roles.

3. data custodianship, i.e. the free choice of legislation and geography for data and services:

- Data owners decide for themselves which data is shared with which users with which access rights and for what purpose it is processed.

- A role-based authorization concept

should meet regulatory requirements, data order processing and GDPR compliance should be legally compliant.

4. identical protection classes for data and services:

- For data exchange and the use of services, standardized and higher-level organized semantics.

- Additional domain-specific standards.

- Semantics including semantics enablement layer for operating the ecosystem and user domains.

- Storage and use of algorithms and data with certain basic metadata to identify protection classes and confidentiality rules for a datum (data set).

5. ecosystem for algorithms and methods of data monetization:

- Synergies in existing and new value networks of actors.

- Data monetization marketplace with incentives for digital value creation.