• Cloud users can now search and compare cloud services that meet all Gaia-X trust elements for digital value chains through the CISPE Federation Catalogue.
• Institut Mines-Telecom and its partners, through GXFS FR, present key prototype building blocks for data exchange with contractual negotiation and authorisations.
• Based on the Federated Catalogue, cloud vendors of all sizes are now able to compose cloud services from interoperable service components to compete at the scale and scope demanded by customers.
• A first serviced for local public administrations orchestrating multiple cloud infrastructures from competing European cloud vendors will be presented during the Gaia-X summit.

Alicante, November 9th 2023 – Today, the CISPE Federation Catalogue goes live with over 500 cloud services meeting Gaia-X requirements. Using the catalogue, cloud providers building scalable, multi-cloud, multi-featured offerings can select and compose exactly the right combination of services for the benefit of customers. In addition, thanks to GXFS FR, the community led by Institut Mines-Télécom and its partners, trusted data exchange and processing will be facilitated by the release to the Gaia-X community of prototype building blocks for contractual negotiation, which will speed up value creation in the European Data Spaces. The CISPE catalogue can be accessed at https://catalogue.cispe-cde.cloud/

 “The vision of Gaia-X is to set the principles that will enable end-to-end digital chains of trust to reach all cloud users. What the CISPE Federation Catalogue demonstrates is the ability of a federation to bring value to its community and the market thanks to the collective effort to define and adopt Gaia-X Standards. The additional building blocks for contract negotiations developed by GXFS FR will also help the Data Spaces to accelerate trusted exchanges of data”

explains Pierre Gronlier, CTO of Gaia-X.

First Cloud Federation Catalogue goes live with CISPE

Gaia-X catalogues are designed to facilitate collaboration between providers and customers to address specific market needs. They materialize a full chain of trust across various components to build confidence in interoperable digital services. Through the CISPE Federation Catalogue, cloud users can search and compare service offerings of providers and combine those meeting their exact requirements in terms of Gaia-X compliance level, data protection certifications, cybersecurity, or sustainability for example. Crucially, the catalogue defines, for every service, the relevant labels and requirements at specific geographic locations supporting customers with strict data localization demands.

The building block for aggregation of services for new value and competition

Cloud service providers can also combine cloud infrastructure services from different providers to create new value by serving more customer requests in terms of functional parameters or location of services. As such the catalogue can support smaller European players by allowing them to offer a greater range of services that meet the scope and scale demands of customers. Using the Federation Calaogue as a building block, cloud customers will be able to “compose” service offerings Europe that meet their requirements, both in terms of scale, diversity and resilience, based on the computing resources pooled among competing European infrastructure providers.

For all cloud service providers, the CISPE Federation Catalogue represents an important ‘shop window’ which delivers significant return on their important investments in certifying their cloud services, making them better known and understood by potential customers on the market. The CISPE Federation Catalogue is open to service offerings of any provider fulfilling not only the core requirements of Gaia-X but also key European initiatives in climate neutrality or data portability. Three CISPE members, Aruba, Opiquad and Testudo, will demonstrate the added value of the CISPE Federation Catalogue at the Gaia-X Summit.

“Once again, CISPE is very proud to pave the way demonstrating how interesting concepts and initial prototypes can be developed further into valuable tools by a strong community of forward-looking Cloud Providers,”

says Francisco Mingorance, General Secretary of CISPE.

Empowering and encouraging other Data Spaces

The catalogue has been deployed with the support of the Cloud Data Engine (CDE) team. Thanks to its work this first example of a live, production grade catalogue will empower and encourage other Federations within specific Data Spaces to deploy their own catalogues fulfilling Gaia-X common requirements plus additional sector-specific rules. The CDE will also back other industry catalogues based on Gaia-X requirements.

GXFS FR through Institut Mines-Télécom and its partners bridge the gap between IT and the legal world

GXFS FR, the Institut Mines Telecom, its Data & AI platform Teralab, and its partners 3DS OUTSCALE, Atos, Dawex, Docaposte and OVHcloud, have also unveiled a “Negotiation and Contractualization of Data Exchanges” system. This underpins data exchange with contract negotiation and authorization management to strengthen European Data Spaces. After a negotiation process, a legally protected PDF contract is generated. Parties must subscribe to specific irrefutable protection clauses (data protection, intellectual property, data hosting, etc.) which are automatically implemented by the catalogue services to link with the Gaia X Policy Rules and Labels.

Anne-Sophie Taillandier, Director of the Teralab platform at Institut Mines-Telecom, who manages the GXFS FR project, underlines:

“Our demonstrator offers a secure and flexible framework; the *user chooses what data they want to share in the frame of European Data Spaces, in which timeframe time and under what specific conditions. This missing feature to date is mandatory to create a fully trusted open environment when exchanging data between competitors or with other member of a value chain, and we are proud to release today way to bridge this gap and bring complete transparency.”

The GAIA-X Hub France has put online e-learning modules to learn how to use the various federated services to identify user needs, prototype an idea, launch or improve a product, draw up a business plan: https://elearning.gxfs.fr/

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About CISPE and the CISPE Federation Catalogue

CISPE, the voice of Cloud Infrastructure Provider in Europe, is a founded member of Gaia-X, and a key driver for building a better cloud in Europe towards data protection, data portability, cybersecurity, fair competition and climate neutrality.

The CISPE Federation represents the community of the Cloud Infrastructure Providers in Europe, not only members of CISPE itself. Services offerings within the CISPE Federation Catalogue reference over 500 service offerings from; 3DS OUTSCALE, Aruba, AWS, Arsys, CoreTech, Gigas, Ikoula, Irideos, Jotelulu, Leaseweb, Netalia, Opiquad, OVHcloud and Thésee Data Centre.

More about Cispe: https://cispe.cloud

Access to the Cispe Federation Catalogue: https://cde.cispe.cloud

About GXFS FR

GXFS FR is a collaboration including of 6 of the 11 French founding members of Gaia-X (Atos, 3DS Outscale, CISPE, Docaposte, OVHcloud, Institut Mines-Telecom), in addition with Dawex.

The objective of the project is to accelerate Gaia X Federated services definition and development within the Gaia X governance; All the results (documentations, specifications, architecture document and source code) are delivered in an open manner.

About Gaia-X

Established in 2021 as a privately funded not-for-profit Association, Gaia-X brings together an international industrial, academic, and political community with the aim of building a common standard for transparent, controllable, and interoperable technologies in order to enable the creation of common data spaces, and in doing so boost the European data economy.

Open to anyone but aligned to the European values of human-centricity, transparency, openness and sovereignty, Gaia-X’s ambition is to deliver unprecedented opportunities for innovative data-driven business models, reducing the dependency from non-controllable technologies.

More about Gaia-X : www.gaia-x.eu

About Cloud Data Engine

Cloud Data Engine (CDE) stands at the forefront of digital transformation grounded in Gaia-X standards. As data management and cloud solution specialists, CDE offers tailored services to address the unique challenges faced by providers, conformity assessment bodies, Data Space member enterprises, and federations. From guiding through certification processes to optimized management in Gaia-X based catalogues, CDE is the driving force propelling businesses into the digital future.

More about Cloud Data Engine: www.CloudDataEngine.io

About Institut Mines-Télécom – http://www.imt.fr/en

Institut Mines-Télécom is the leading public group of French engineering and management schools to be placed under the supervisory authority of the Ministry of the Economy, Finances and Industrial and Digital Sovereignty. It is a public research and higher education institution made up of eight public graduate schools: IMT Atlantique, IMT Mines Albi, IMT Mines Alès, IMT Nord Europe, Institut Mines-Telecom Business School, Mines Saint-Étienne, Telecom Paris and Telecom SudParis as well as two subsidiary schools: EURECOM and InSIC. It leads and develops a rich ecosystem of partner schools and economic, academic and institutional partners and players in training, research and economic development.  Created to meet France’s needs in economic and industrial development since the 19th century, Institut Mines-Télécom’s graduate schools have supported all the communications and industrial revolutions. Through its research and its training of engineers, managers and PhD students, Institut Mines-Télécom tackles the major industrial, digital, energy and environmental challenges in France, Europe and around the world.  Today, Institut Mines-Télécom and its 10 schools are imagining and building a world that combines science, technology and economic development with a respect for the planet and the people who live on it. It is double Carnot certified and trains 13,600 students every year.