A landscape overview of the EOSC Interoperability Framework - Capabilities and Gaps

This document is one of the deliverables of the EOSC-A Task Force on “Technical Interoperability of Data and Services”. Its main aim is to collect the most up-to-date information regarding the EOSC Interoperability Framework, its main capabilities and implementation status.

The document summarises all the work that has been done on the EOSC Architecture and Interoperability Framework by different initiatives in the last years that allowed the convergence towards a common idea of what the EOSC Interoperability Framework should be. In line with the concept of System of Systems, the EOSC Interoperability Framework aims to put together, in a unique framework, the results and the decades of experience on interoperability of ESFRI/Thematic clusters, ERICs, general purpose e-Infrastructures (EGI, EUDAT, GEANT, OpenAIRE) and cross-domain initiatives like the Research Data Alliance, GO-FAIR and CODATA. The document presents the foundations of the EOSC Interoperability Framework, the EOSC Architecture and the Minimum Viable EOSC as they have been defined by the EOSC Working Groups, established during the previous EOSC Governance, and describes their evolution under EOSC Future, other relevant EOSC projects and via the different task forces of the EOSC Association.

Key technical design considerations to implement the EOSC IF, agreed between relevant EOSC stakeholders (research infrastructures, scientific clusters, e-infrastructures, etc.), are drawn. These include the bottom-up approach to build the EOSC IF and the concept of Interoperability Guidelines to promote the branding and adoption of standards and common best practices in EOSC as the basic elements of the EOSC IF. The EOSC Interoperability Guidelines describe the APIs, the metadata format of the exchanged data and all the processes required to really make EOSC resources interoperable. The need of a new EOSC Core component, the EOSC IF registry, to store and manage the library of interoperability guidelines has been identified together with how it should interact with the other EOSC Core components such as the EOSC Resource Catalogue. Technical considerations on how to achieve machine composability and data interoperability are also introduced.

Furthermore, the deliverable depicts the ongoing EOSC Future work to implement the EOSC IF leveraging the design concepts previously discussed. A summary of the main achievements of EOSC Future in the areas of setting up an EOSC IF governance, developing the EOSC IF registry and populating the IF registry through the creation and registration of interoperability guidelines is described. In addition, Information on how this work is expected to be continued by future initiatives after the EOSC Future end is presented.

The document also reports an overview of the work on technical interoperability of other EOSC Projects and major scientific initiatives in Europe that are expected to feed the EOSC IF in line with the bottom-up approach to populate the EOSC IF described earlier.

The results of an EOSC IF GAP analysis executed by the TF are reported. This exercise allowed the TF to identify areas that require further attention to fully realise the interoperability in EOSC. GAPs on both the EOSC IF Architecture components and the overall data and services interoperability have been identified and a list of recommendations has been provided.

Finally, the deliverable describes how the work on EOSC Interoperability relates and links to the same activity undertaken by other two major European initiatives such as the European Data Spaces and EuroHPC, and a list of recommendations is provided.