Data Exchange Glossary by Dawex
The most important Data Exchange notions explained
As the data economy is expanding, all surrounding topics are being impacted where new initiatives are undertaken, markets are being regulated and structured, new concepts are arising, new notions are being defined, new words are being used. This dynamic calls for grasping a new vocabulary and getting familiar with new wordings, notions and subjects. This glossary is intended to clarify terms and source definitions to help you navigate through the data economy and the world of data ecosystems.
AI Act - The AI Act is a European regulation aimed at making the EU a world-class hub for AI and ensuring that AI is human-centric and trustworthy. Regulation establishes a risk-based framework for AI systems, imposing strict requirements on high-risk AI systems, and introducing transparency obligations for AI systems interacting with humans. The AI Act entered into force on August 1, 2024 and will be in application starting August 2, 2026.
Corporate Data Hub - A Corporate Data Hub is an internal type of Data Hub aiming at fostering data circulation and sharing between various entities of the same corporation, such as business units, subsidiaries or departments. A Corporate Data Hub is a powerful tool to facilitate internal data discovery and sharing in compliance with policies and regulations, even more when sub-entities of the corporation have different legal structures, separate data infrastructures, or are subject to different data regulations.
Data - Data refers to any collection of facts, figures, statistics or representation of information that can be processed, analyzed, and used to gain insights and make decisions.
Data acquirer - The data acquirer is the organization that acquires access and usage rights for a data product from a data provider as the result of a data transaction.
Data Act - The Data Act (DA) is a European regulation aimed at 1) setting up the rules for facilitated access to connected devices data, 2) rebalancing negotiating powers to prevent misconducts in data exchange contracts, 3) simplifying cloud and edge service providers switch, 4) allowing public sector bodies access data in case of public emergencies, 5) preventing unlawful transfers or accesses to data by non-EU governments. The Data Act entered into force on January 11, 2024 and will be in application starting September 12, 2025.
Data as business - Data as business is an approach where data exchange is the concrete expression of a business objective to create value from the data generated by an organization. The data value can either be generated directly through data commercialization or indirectly, in return for contractual advantages for example. Data as business is the main focus of data providers distributing data on Data Marketplaces.
Data broker - A data broker is a company that acquires data from data providers, then typically aggregates, enriches or transforms it for the purpose of adding value to it. Resulting data products are then licensed to data acquirers –all this without establishing a direct commercial relationship between data providers and data acquirers.
Data circulation - Data circulation is the movement of data within or across industries, ecosystems or markets, including the exchange or sharing of data products between organizations, to achieve economical, social or environmental purposes.
Data commercialization - Data commercialization, also known as data direct monetization, is the process of distributing data products to other organizations against a quantifiable economic or monetary counterpart.
Data ecosystem - A group of separate organizations (participants of the data ecosystem) that exchange data products based on common governance & business policies, trusted identities, secure & trusted data transactions, and complying with data regulations.
Data Ecosystems materialize inside Data Spaces and can take 3 forms: Industry Data Space, Corporate Data Hub, or Data Marketplace.
Data ecosystem orchestrator - A data ecosystem orchestrator or orchestrator, refers to the legal entity that acts as an intermediary to facilitate data exchanges, without being contractually engaged in the data transaction. It is responsible for setting and enforcing governance & compliance policies, as well as providing data exchange & business modeling capabilities, managing the onboarding of data providers and data & services acquirers, stimulating participants activity, and monitoring operations.
Data exchange - The process by which an organization, i.e. the data provider, grants another organization, ie. the data acquirer, access to a data product. The data exchange is performed according to precise governance rules, under technical, contractual and financial terms proposed by the data provider, agreed by the data acquirer, and materialized by a data transaction.
Data Exchange Advisory - Data Exchange Advisory are expert services aimed at helping organizations in defining and delivering a successful data exchange strategy. Advisory typically covers market and ecosystem analysis, data exchange use cases identification, business planning, organization, go-to-market and growth strategy.
Data Exchange Platform - A Data Exchange Platform delivers all necessary capabilities to manage data exchanges under various business models, meeting compliance, security and privacy requirements. A data exchange platform addresses the needs of the orchestrator operating the platform as a trusted data intermediation service provider, as well as the needs of the data providers and data acquirers engaged in trusted data transactions.
Data exchange roadmap - A data exchange roadmap refers to the planning describing major steps to be undertaken in order to deliver a data exchange strategy. It covers data exchange governance, technology, data products management, go-to-market, organization and operations.
Data exchange strategy - A data exchange strategy aims at defining the strategic approach to create value from data distribution, data sourcing, data sharing and/or data ecosystem orchestration.
Data exchange traceability - Data exchange traceability refers to the ability to trace the exchange of data throughout its lifecycle. This process is used to ensure that data transaction is accurate, complete, consistent and compliant with regulations.
Data for business - Data for business is an approach where data exchange is the means to fuel an organization's operational efficiency or to comply with contractual or regulatory requirements. Corporate Data Hubs and Industry Data Spaces often integrate a data-for-business oriented perspective where data exchange is driven by the demand.
Data Governance Act - The Data Governance Act (DGA) is a European regulation aimed at boosting data exchanges and data sharing by regulating 1) data intermediation service providers, 2) the re-use of publicly-held, protected data, and 3) the sharing of data for altruistic purposes. Both personal and non-personal data are in scope of the DGA, which entered into force on June 23, 2022 and applies since September 24, 2023.
Data hub - A Data Hub is a data ecosystem, managed by an orchestrator, where several organizations decide to share or exchange data products for common business or industrial objectives. A Data Hub encompasses free and paid data transactions that are always subject to compliance, governance, licensing, security and privacy requirements.
Data Intermediation Services Provider - The Data Intermediation Service Provider is the organization, as defined by the European Data Governance Act (DGA), that provides services which aim to establish commercial relationships for the purposes of data sharing or data exchange between an undetermined number of data providers on the one hand and data acquirers on the other, through technical or legal means. The Data Intermediation Services Provider is also known as Data Ecosystem Orchestrator.
Data license - A data license is a contractual agreement which describes the conditions under which the data acquirer can use the data once acquired, such as duration, sub-licensing rights, territory etc.
Data licensee - A data licensee is a legal person who is granted usage rights for data by a data licensor.
Data licensing - Data licensing is the process where a data licensor is granting rights to a data licensee to access and use one or several data products made available by the data licensor, at terms and conditions described in a data license agreement.
Data licensor - A data licensor is a natural or legal person who owns usage rights for data and grants these rights to a data licensee.
Data Marketplace - A Data Marketplace is a data ecosystem where multiple data providers distribute and commercialize data products to multiple data acquirers.
A Data Marketplace aims at increasing data distribution and revenue generation by facilitating data access, discovery and data transactions.
It typically provides trusted identification, packaging, publishing, marketing, discovery, pricing, transaction and payment capabilities. A Data Marketplace is operated by an orchestrator, acting as a trusted intermediary between data providers and data acquirers.
Data producer - A data producer is a natural or legal person, a device or any software that generates data.
Data product - A data product is a collection of data under various formats. It is then packaged by the data provider with the associated description metadata, licenses, terms of use and offering details to make it ready for data exchange.
Data provider - The data provider is the organization that grants access and usage rights for a data product to a data acquirer as the result of a data transaction.
Data sharing - Data sharing is the process whereby organizations provide access to data products to other organizations, usually for a win-win or a collaborative purpose. Data sharing can take the form of either a common collaborative access to the same data product, or the form of a data transaction where the data product is transferred to the data acquirer. While data sharing is often free of charge, it is nevertheless still subject to governance and compliance policies, as well as business and licensing agreements.
Data space - A data space is an Interoperable framework, based on common governance principles, standards, practices and enabling services, that enables trusted data transactions between participants. [Source DSSC]
Data Spaces enable the building and the scaling of Data Ecosystems.
Data supplier - A data supplier is also known as a data provider.
Data transaction - Data transaction refers to a unique immutable, i.e. unmodifiable unit of data access or exchange, logged, treated in a coherent and reliable way independent of other data transactions.
A data transaction requires trust between participants, regulatory compliance, contractualization, licensing, technical exchange management and traceability.
Data transaction in a distributed mode - Data transactions in a distributed mode rely on a network topology where nodes are exchanging data with each other peer-to-peer.
Distributed systems are suited for use cases where trust in participants is pre existing, allowing direct transfer between parties.
Data transaction in a managed mode - A data transaction in a managed mode refers to a data transaction where an intermediary acts as a trusted third party. The data flows from the data provider to the acquirer via the third party, which manages trust, cataloging and traceability. Managed systems are suited when trust must be enforced by a third party.
Data valorization - Data valorization is the process of turning data into data products in order to generate revenue streams, share insights, information or knowledge to take actionable decisions.
Industry Data Space - An Industry Data Space brings together business partners from a specific sector, industry or value chain. The Industry Data Space partners exchange data products and collaborate in order to improve operational and business efficiency.
The Industry Data Space is governed by a Data Space Governance Authority (DGSA), also known as the orchestrator, that defines, maintains, and enforces the data space governance framework and manages its day-to-day operations. The Industry Data Space establishes trustworthiness and enables trusted data transactions between data providers and data acquirers.
Data Exchange, at the heart of innovation
In an economy where data is recognized as a strategic asset, organizations that implement and master the circulation of data create a competitive advantage within their ecosystem and beyond.
Dawex Data Exchange solutions enable organizations to build and govern data ecosystems, implement any business cases, establish trust between data providers and data acquirers, and operate data transactions, all securely and in compliance with regulations.
