Functional requirements for a Data Space

This section of the Rulebook describes the mandatory functional requirements as well as optional elements for building trusted data spaces. It highlights the design decisions necessary to build and operate data spaces in decentralized architectures and deployment patterns to show how various solutions are enabled by the building blocks of data spaces.

Data sharing in a data space is not limited to sending data from one participant to another but can be more complex, like code to data scenarios. Fundamentally, all sharing of data consists of peer-to-peer interactions. All business scenarios consisting of multiple actors are built on peer-to-peer data contracts of two participants.

A data space adds value beyond individual data sharing by enabling collective trust and thus enabling complex, cooperative data services and applications. These capabilities have functional requirements which need to be included in the design of a data space.

Different business, regulatory, legal, or technical requirements necessitate different business processes, governance frameworks and solution approaches. Some data spaces might require specialised, value-added services to provide critical business services, or fulfil a regulatory mandate while others might be designed so their participants have a maximum level of autonomy and maintain agency over how to share their data.

The architecture and functional requirements of data spaces as depicted in the IDSA Rulebook supports a wide variety of design decisions while emphasizing a common technical foundation that guarantees interoperability and reduces friction for organisations that want to participate in many different data spaces.

As described in the chapters on Layers and Roles involved business roles are implemented through the technical participant in a data space.

This underlines the need for all parties involved in a data space and in the sharing, and usage of data to adhere to a common set of rules, the policies provided by the DSGA, and the data provider.

The concrete mandatory and optional functional areas are detailed in Foundational concepts of a data space.