ORC: Orchestrating Data Between Dataspaces

The world we live in is one of connectivity, and dataspaces are no exception. As organisations expand, this connectivity becomes ever more so important as dataspaces facilitate data between partners. When organisations create data, other organisations will need that data- and when the mismatch of what an organisation needs vs what data is available? That’s when the DS2 Orchestration Module (ORC) comes in.

What is ORC?

The Orchestration Module, also known as ORC, is a BPMN process modeller that facilitates the orchestration of data. It allows users to add in API endpoints to the Service Directory, and then use these endpoints with processes with our Process Designer. These versatile processes are able to interact with endpoints seamlessly, allowing users to choose what happens to their data between endpoints.

In addition, the DS2 Form Designer allows users to create user focused interactions in processes, allowing a human element into the process.

All of these orchestration processes can be viewed and managed within the Orchestration Module.

Why ORC?

The DS2 Project aims to help facilitate the needs of dataspaces, and expand their reach to interacting with different components that interact with different dataspaces. Because dataspaces handle data differently, they need something to orchestrate the data between them- and because the human interaction element is still important, the Orchestration Module is able to manage the orchestrating of data with humans being centred at the process. In addition, the Service Directory feature allows any organisation to add to it, and users can call these APIs without needing to use the rest of the Orchestration Module, giving the ORC module a strong, versatile use amongst the DS2 components.

DS2 Architecture Overview

The Orchestration Module is a collection of services that all work in tandem to provide the orchestration service. It can be broken down into five broad sub-components:

• Process Designer; design processes

• Form Designer; design forms for tasks that require human interaction

• Control Panel; manage the processes and preview the data streams

• Task Manager; allow users to handle tasks assigned to them

• Service Directory; manage and organise service endpoints

Together, these sub-components allow the Orchestration Module to be able to create processes that unite services and organisations by their data.