Data spaces have matured dramatically. What began as early prototypes has become a landscape of complex, multi‑provider environments operating across industries and borders. With this evolution, the architectural requirements have also changed. The IDS Reference Architecture Model (RAM) has long served as the technical foundation for sovereign data sharing, and RAM 4 fulfilled this role for many years. It remains valid today but it no longer evolves.
IDS-RAM 4 is frozen and stable
The decision to freeze RAM 4 is not driven by any flaw in the document. Quite the opposite: Many implementations rely on RAM 4 exactly as it is. Freezing it keeps this baseline stable and avoids disrupting existing deployments. Updating the monolithic structure of RAM 4 would risk breaking assumptions or introducing inconsistencies at a moment when organizations require continuity.
Yet the ecosystem around data spaces has moved on. New interoperability specifications are emerging. Identity and claims management has matured. Semantics, observability, auditing, and compliance demand clearer technical guidance. Real implementations now require more than conceptual abstractions: they need concrete capabilities, integration points, and architectural choices.
In short, while RAM 4 stays valid, it cannot grow with the demands of today’s data‑space landscape.
The ecosystem has outgrown the RAM 4 structure
RAM 4 is designed as a single, monolithic reference with layered viewpoints – business, functional, information, process, and system – plus cross‑cutting areas such as security, certification, and governance. This structure is broad and coherent, but difficult to adapt or extend. When RAM 4 was created, the standards landscape was still forming. Since then, the community has developed new specifications for data exchange and identity, and new approaches on Semantics, and observability.
As organizations move from pilots to production systems, they need practical guidance linked to emerging standards and developments. While RAM 4 provides a strong conceptual foundation, today’s operational data‑space environments require architectural guidance that aligns more directly with current technologies and implementation practices.
New generation of the RAM is needed
The shift toward operational, cross‑ecosystem data spaces means that architecture cannot stay purely descriptive or conceptual. It needs to:
- Map governance rules in the IDSA Rulebook directly to technical capabilities
- Provide clear integration points to specifications like the Dataspace Protocol (DSP) and the Decentralized Claims Protocol (DCP)
- Offer practical guidance establishing trust, maintaining control, data discovery, contract negotiation, data transfer, observability and interoperability
- Support different architectural patterns rather than assuming one federated model
These needs cannot be met by modifying RAM 4. Its structure does not allow for modular updates or for integrating rapidly evolving workstreams such as semantics or observability.
This is why IDSA is developing the next generation of the Reference Architecture Model – RAM 5. It introduces a modular approach and will combine a core architecture with papers on specific topics such as identity, semantic interoperability, and observability. RAM 4 stays, but it stays frozen. RAM 5 becomes the path forward.
What this new architecture looks like – capabilities, patterns, and modular design – will be the focus of the next article in this series.
Meet us at the Data Spaces Symposium in Madrid
IDSA will host a meeting during the Data Spaces Symposium: IDSA Working Group Architecture Community Meet-up – Way Forward for IDS-RAM
Day 2 (February 11, 2026), 9:00 AM in room London 1.
Check out the program and register now: Data Spaces Symposium 2026 – Scaling cross-border data ecosystems .
