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Release: 24.03 (current)

Outlook

The Catena-X Operating Model is a normative document within the regulatory framework, which is binding for all participants in the Catena-X data space. It describes the status of our data space artifacts, including roles, services, and processes along with their respective roadmaps. As Catena-X is an ongoing journey, all of these artifacts will continuously evolve to promote broader adoption and scalability, ensuring maximum interoperability, and (data) sovereignty.

Industry Core​

The Industry Core aims to reduce the complexity of multi-tier connections within the decentralized Catena-X data space and to act as an enabler for data-driven use cases like tracking a product carbon footprint (PCF) value or circular economy. Reusing common components and standards (especially data provisioning of digital twins of parts) across different use cases promotes efficiency and interoperability. To enable onboarding for corporations that have different legal entities, concepts for a corporate BPNL are also created. This enables a simple participation via a company-group-wide BPNL. The industry core fosters the realization of seamless data chains, with one use case benefiting from another. As a result, cross-domain network effects and n-tier use cases become possible.

Increase Decentralization of Core Services​

Catena-X follows a business-oriented decentralization approach that aims to achieve interoperability and data sovereignty while balancing manageability of complexity, and technical maturity. Therefore, Core Services B will gradually transition into onboarding services or Core Services A, if appropriate. Please find below the timeline for the upcoming decentralization of Core Services B (see Figure Timeline for further Decentralization).

Timeline for further Decentralization Timeline for further Decentralization

Release v23.09​

Due to organizational and technical limitations, the services associated with the CSP-A and OSP roles can only be operated once and must therefore temporarily be offered by the nominated CSP-B.

Release v23.12 (planned)​

With the introduction of new identity synchronization functions, multiple CSP-A and OSP can operate the corresponding services and collaborate. In addition, there will be new CSP-B services such as the Policy and Credential Hub.

Releases 2024 (planned)​

With an increasing decentralization of services, Core Services B are shifted step by step to Core Services A and the decentralized portfolio of Onboarding Service Provider likewise increases. For future releases, committees, expert, and working groups will be coordinated to develop a detailed decentralization roadmap under the supervision of the Catena-X Association.

Further Integration of SSI Technologies​

To realize the Catena-X vision of a decentralized data space, we will further develop our SSI technologies. Future releases will enable the use of both managed identity wallets and self-provisioned identity wallets. To enable the technical enforcement of policies, it is planned to introduce a policy hub and policy code templates to also provide the information transparently to the participants. This also includes the decentralization of the issuer service and logging functionality for agreements. To further strengthen trust in the data space, we will introduce the option to define various root trust anchors (e.g., the Catena-X Association). This will also allow the identity wallet to be decentralized and allow multiple issuers. In addition, a chain of trust will be established to prove that a given credential comes from a trusted source according to the Catena-X Governance Framework. The concept is still under development and will be released in one of the next versions (by May 2024). While developing this concept, the concepts of the Policy Hub and the Certifications Hub will also be concretized. An illustration of this can be found in Chapter Data Exchange based on SSI - Next Steps.

Data Space Interoperability​

The Catena-X Association is committed to promote and engage in various initiatives that focus on creating common guidelines and standards to ensure interoperability with other data space initiatives. Initiatives such as the Data Space Support Centre (DSSC) and Manufacturing-X will help establish an interoperable data space across different industry sectors. Furthermore, the Catena-X Association will drive technical initiatives, such as the Eclipse Tractus-X project and the Eclipse Dataspace Working Group (EDWG), which aim to align a common technical foundation, certification procedures and test/ security requirements.

Backward Compatibility​

The vision of the Catena-X data space is to provide seamless data access and creation of data chains across multi-tier value chains. Initially, the data space can be operated and evolved by deployment of dedicated, synchronized releases (see Chapter How: Data Space Governance). While initially, dedicated, synchronized releases (see Chapter How: Data Space Governance) may suffice, our goal of involving thousands of partners makes it impossible to maintain the same technical components across the board. To overcome this challenge, we must ensure that the release and upgrade of dedicated components can be executed independently, without causing disruptions in the network connectivity and data chains.

To achieve this in areas such as APIs, semantic models, and procedural specifications, the Catena-X Association promotes and supports adherence to the following principles:

  • Continuous revising of standards to ensure compatibility between different versions and releases.
  • Developing technical specifications and reference implementations in Eclipse Tractus-X that follow the required standards to lay the technical foundation.
  • Coordinating closely with different operators to execute rollout and implementation of the different versions and releases.

Sanctions​

Following its GoLive, the Catena-X data space will grow in participants and complexity. Consequently, ensuring compliance of all participants with established rules, regulations, and standards becomes increasingly relevant.

Moving forward, concepts of imposing restrictions or penalties on individuals, organizations, or entities that engage in actions or behaviors that are deemed harmful, illegal, or unethical within the context of data management, privacy, and security will be evaluated and developed. These sanctions will aim to deter, correct, or punish noncompliant behavior, thereby safeguarding data integrity, protecting individual rights, and maintaining the trust and credibility of the data ecosystem.