The two Gaia-X projects Sovereign Cloud Stack (SCS) and Gaia-X Federation Services (GXFS), which are funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, are combined and tested together on open infrastructure in the now beginning implementation phase. The goal of the two projects that have been launched last year is to create an fully open toolkit for sovereign, standardized and federable cloud infrastructure. This technical foundation represents an important contribution of Germany to the pan-European Gaia-X project and enables organizations to become part of the new digital ecosystem.
“With the deployment of the Gaia-X Federation Services on an Sovereign Cloud Stack implementation that is already in productive use on the market, we have come an important step closer to the goal of Gaia-X and the two funding projects. The resulting open source toolbox for sovereign data infrastructure creates an important basic prerequisite for the innovation capability of companies and public administrations in the cloud,” says Peter Ganten, Chairman of the Board of the Open Source Business Alliance e.V.
“By aligning and implementing the defined standards into productively usable software, the two projects are creating concrete benefits for our users. Together we‘re building structures and an open community that can ensure further progress,” rejoices Kurt Garloff, technical lead of the SCS project at OSB Alliance.
The purpose of the Gaia-X Federation Services is to make the Gaia-X ecosystem operational. All services from the GXFS toolbox are currently being developed on a reference implementation of SCS. Therefore, Kubernetes clusters based on the emerging SCS standard are provided to GXFS implementation partners and operated on fully sovereign infrastructure.
“Together we have laid the foundations for Gaia-X and thus for an open, transparent and secure digital ecosystem,” says Andreas Weiss, GXFS project manager and head of the digital business models division at eco – Verband der Internetwirtschaft e. V.. “We now have the technical framework to use data and services sovereignly across sector-specific data spaces – and thus to strengthen the sovereignty of the European digital economy.”
About Gaia-X Federation Services
Innovation through digital sovereignty – that’s the goal of Gaia-X. This is achieved by establishing an ecosystem in which data is made available, collated and shared in a trustworthy environment where users always retain sovereignty over their data. What emerges is not a cloud, but a federated system that links many cloud service providers and users together.
The Gaia-X Federation Services (GXFS) represent the minimum technical requirements needed to build and operate a cloud-based, self-determined data infrastructure ecosystem. On the basis of technical specifications, services are developed based on an open source code. These will be further developed into operational services by the Gaia-X community and continuously improved.
Led by eco, the GXFS-DE project is also funded by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action and is in close exchange with the Gaia-X Association for Data and Cloud (AISBL) and the French funded project GXFS-FR.
About eco – Association of the Internet Industry
With over 1,000 member companies, eco is the largest Internet industry association in Europe. Since 1995 eco has been highly instrumental in shaping the Internet, fostering new technologies, forming framework conditions, and representing the interests of members in politics and international committees. eco’s key topics are the reliability and strengthening of digital infrastructure, IT security and trust, as well as ethically-oriented digitalisation. eco advocates for a free, technologically-neutral, and high-performance Internet.
About Sovereign Cloud Stack Projekt
The Sovereign Cloud Stack (SCS) was launched in 2019 and initially funded by the Federal Agency for Disruptive Innovations – SPRIND. Since July 2021, SCS is a project of the Open Source Business Alliance and receives funding by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK, formerly BMWi). A growing community of more than 20 companies contribute to the success of Sovereign Cloud Stack. By joining forces, standards for a modern, federatable open source cloud and container platform are defined and implemented by using proven open source components.
At the same time, operational knowledge and practices are transparently shared to minimize the difficulty of delivering high-quality and secure cloud offerings. Two (soon three) providers are already using SCS in production environments to offer public cloud services. Further setups are in the development and testing phases.
About Open Source Business Alliance – Bundesverband für digitale Souveränität e.V. (OSB Alliance)
The Open Source Business Alliance (OSB Alliance) is the association of the open source industry in Germany. We represent over 170 member companies that employ approximately 10,000 people and generate more than 1.7 billion euros annually in Germany. Together with scientific institutions and user organisations, we are committed to sustainably anchoring the central importance of open source software and open standards for a successful digital transformation in the public awareness. This digital transformation should benefit companies, the state and society alike. In addition, innovations in the field of open source should be promoted. Our goal is to establish open source as the standard in public procurement and in research and business promotion. After all, open source and open standards are essential foundations for digital sovereignty, innovative capacity and security in the digital transformation and thus the answer to one of the greatest challenges of our time.
