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# Concepts in Data Space Integration
Get to know the basic terms and concepts of Data Space Integration.
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## Components
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Concept
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Description
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*Asset*
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Set of data. This data changes depending on the data space.
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*Catena-X*
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Collaborative, open data ecosystem for the automotive industry aimed at providing a global data exchange based on European legislature and values. Catena-X is hosted by a network of different operating companies like Cofinity-X.
See: [Catena-X](https://catena-x.net/en/)
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*Consumer*
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Data space participant consuming assets of other data space members as defined by policies and offered in contract definitions.
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*Contract Agreement*
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Final agreement between the consumer and the provider of assets within a data space that forms the technical and legal foundation for the exchange of assets.
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*Contract Definition*
or *Offer*
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Offer put out by a provider containing data that can be requested by one or multiple consumers.
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*Contract Reference*
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Identifier used to keep a manual list of the contracts that exist for your company, with the respective business partners and potential use cases. After defining a contract reference, business admins can use them to define both policies and company policies and restrict who can work with you.
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*Company Policy*
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A set of rules designed to restrict what consumers a provider with a specific client ID can work with. Use company policies to restrict the consumers you and the users on your client can work with. This way, you can exclude unknown or malicious individuals and keep your assets safe. Company policies can be specific to a certain business partner numbers, an active membership, or a specific framework agreement, usage purpose, or contract reference.
SAP predelivers company policies, but you can also create your own company policies, specific to your use case.
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*Data space*
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A virtual place that enables the exchange of data between two or more parties in a self-sovereign, peer-to-peer fashion without the need of a central hub.
A data space provides sovereign data governance and is based on interoperable standardized components.
Data spaces are typically organized by industry or topic.
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*Data Sovereignty*
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This means that data owners who share data can certify the identity of the data consumer and control the terms and conditions under which their data is used by the data consumer.
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*Eclipse Dataspace Connector*
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The Eclipse Dataspace Connector provides a framework for sovereign, interorganizational data exchange. It implements the International Data Spaces standard \(IDS\) as well as relevant protocols associated with GAIA-X.
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*Policy*
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A set of \(predefined\) rules for data access, control defining access rights and duration of access, based on the needs of data owner.
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*Provider*
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The data space participant offering assets defined by policies and bundled into contract definitions to other data space members.
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