Publication & Discovery

iSHARE provides a framework for the discovery of:

1. (Data) Services. All participants providing services must provide a /capabilities endpoint, as defined in the developer documentation. This endpoint provides information on the available iSHARE service offerings.

2. Participants of a data space. Participants of a data space are discoverable through the /parties endpoint of any iSHARE Satellite.

3. Data spaces. Data spaces are discoverable through the /dataspaces endpoint of any iSHARE Satellite.

This topic is partly covered in the iSHARE Trust Framework. The data space is free to define supplemental agreements or specifications. On top of the DSSC building block on publication & discovery, in the iSHARE Data Space Template, the topics of data space discovery and participant discovery were added.

DSSC Description

The purpose of the Publication and Discovery building block is to provision and discover offerings within a data space. The formal descriptions of these offerings are explained in more detail in Data, Services, and Offerings Descriptions. Offerings are typically created by providers of data and services and are stored within a catalogue, where the provider is responsible for managing their lifecycle, from the moment they are published until they are removed. After publication, consumers can query the available offerings in the catalogue and find (i.e. discover) the best match.

In summary, the offerings are:

• Created by providers to showcase their data and services.

• Typically stored within a catalogue;

• Used by consumers to identify offerings that best match their needs.

Based on the above, the objectives of the Publication and Discovery building block are:

• For data and service providers:

  • Expose the metadata of data and services as offerings, ensuring they are visible to all (or a subset of) data space participants as potential consumers;

  • Manage offerings in accordance with their lifecycle;

  • Manage access to offerings;

• For data and service consumers:

  • To identify the best-matching offerings, that is, to search (i.e., query) offerings to ascertain whether their characteristics, terms, and conditions align with their business and technical needs and requirements.

  • To request access to these offerings.

The Publication and Discovery building block is linked to article 33 of the European Data Act ('Essential requirements regarding interoperability of data, of data sharing mechanisms and services, as well as of common European data spaces').

The complete description is available here.