SingularLogic, a member of the Space Hellas Group of companies, is a leading software integrator that provides enterprise software solutions and services for large enterprises and organizations in Greece. The company develops methods of resolution to harness the power of digital transformation for the private and public sectors. In a conversation with their research and development manager, Dr. Stamatia Rizou, and Ioasonas Sotiropoulos, IT expert of the discussed deployment scenario, they explained their motivation and the experiment.
“As a software integrator, being part of the data space community and experimenting with the new technologies is important. That’s why we joined IDSA, Rizou states. The trend is towards data spaces which enable companies to share data in a trusted way. That opens the door and unlocks added value if you realize the data, provide analytics, and incorporate additional functionalities tailored to each use case, Rizou emphasizes. “It really helps to have the expertise to create a data space that can gradually evolve based on the needs of our customers.” IDSA is the perfect partner here.
But what is their experiment doing exactly? SingularLogic is deploying an in-house Minimum Viable Data Space (MVDS) to monitor real-time energy data from IoT devices through more than 70 sensors deployed in their office building. Historical data sets covering more than five years are available for the experiment. “We wanted to start from something that we can control. The domain of energy efficiency in buildings is very relevant to us. Our sister company provides an IoT solution for energy efficiency in buildings.” Detailed power consumption analysis enables SingularLogic to optimize the energy usage in their building, translating it into cost savings. The rationale of the case study is to allow trustworthy data sharing with stakeholders to estimate and predict energy consumption for policy-making purposes.
SingularLogic discovered that IDSA has done an exceptional job documenting the minimum requirements for data space components and will use the guidelines of the IDS RAM. These components will serve as the main building blocks for the local MVDS deployment and the testing of the case study.
The current MVDS deployment is a proof-of-concept and not suitable for a “production-level” data space. However, SingularLogic is also considering a more scalable deployment. Ioasonas Sotiropoulos comments, “We can think of what we have done already as two separate test cases. One is a local deployment of the testbed, which is very well explained in the documentation of IDSA and which we managed to do. We even deployed the Kubernetes part of it. And now we are performing a bigger test to deploy a data space as if it was in production. To see how that would work in a production case.”
Sotiropoulos highlights Kubernetes’ role in MVDS’s technical deployment, acting as a system orchestrator for micro-applications in a trusted way. Kubernetes streamlines communication and management of micro-applications through certification mechanisms.
Experimenting with new concepts for data spaces is of central interest to SingularLogic. One desired outcome is to foster innovation and knowledge transfer within the organization. “We are working in the research and innovation department, but of course, part of our mission is to transfer knowledge on new technologies in our commercial departments,” Rizou highlights. As soon as they have substantial results and best practices, they are eager to share them with their colleagues. Because then “we create more opportunities for our whole group of companies.” And for a more sustainable future.
