EDC Tutorial Dataspace Connectivity - eclipse-tractusx/eclipse-tractusx.github.io GitHub Wiki

πŸ‘₯ Responsible, Contact Persons

  • Stephan Bauer
    Platform Domain Manager | Manager for Network Services, Catena-X Automotive Network e.V.

  • Nikolay Peshev
    Technical Solution Consultant – Automotive Digitalization, Polygran

  • Mikel Garcia Bartolome
    Dataspace Consultant – LKS Next

βš™οΈ Kubernetes, Helm, and Minikube in the Tractus-X Ecosystem

Imagine you have many different software applications (like different parts of a big project) that need to run reliably.
Kubernetes is like the master conductor of an orchestra. It automates the deployment, scaling, and management of these applications, which are packaged into containers β€” think of them as standardized boxes holding everything an app needs to run.

Since Kubernetes is usually a large system running across multiple machines, Minikube is a tool that lets you run a small, single-node Kubernetes cluster locally on your own computer. It’s perfect for experimenting and learning.

If Kubernetes is the operating system for your applications, Helm is like its app store or package manager. Complex applications often consist of many Kubernetes components. Helm uses "charts" β€” pre-packaged sets of instructions β€” to define, install, and upgrade even the most complex applications with ease.

How This Applies to Tractus-X

The Tractus-X Umbrella is a large ecosystem of components. Here’s how these tools play a role:

  • Kubernetes
    Is the foundational platform for deploying Tractus-X components.

  • Helm
    Is used to manage the deployment of Tractus-X components.
    Tractus-X provides Helm charts for its various modules, simplifying the task of setting up the necessary Kubernetes resources like deployments, services, and ingress configurations.

  • Minikube
    Is ideal for experimenting with a playground setup of Tractus-X on a local machine.

These tools together make it easier to develop, test, and run the Tractus-X platform β€” from small-scale experimentation to large-scale deployment.

🧰 Services Provided by the Umbrella Helm Charts

The Umbrella Helm Charts provide the following services (note: some are initially disabled):

Registered EDCs

  • Alice – Dataconsumer-1
  • Bob – Dataprovider
  • Trudy – Dataconsumer-2 (deactivated by default)

Identity & Access Management

  • Keycloak
  • Central-IDP
  • Shared-IDP

Admin & Portal Services

  • PG Admin
  • Portal

SSI-DIM Wallet Stub

Includes:

  • SSI Credential Issuer
  • BDRS
  • SAP DIV (Wallet)
  • ...

βœ… Prerequisites / Requirements

For local deployment (on your host machine), the following tools are needed:

  • jq
  • helm
  • kubectl
  • minikube
  • Bruno

🚧 Challenges

The Umbrella Helm Charts provide already several services (some are enabled, some are disabled).
For our workstream, we mainly use the values-adopter-data-exchange.yaml

With this file, the following components are included:

centralidp:           enabled: true
managed-identity-wallet: enabled: true
dataconsumerOne:      enabled: true
tx-data-provider:     enabled: true
dataconsumerTwo:      enabled: false
pgadmin4:             enabled: true

Note:
Some other components like databases, vaults are already included in the enabled components.
You could also use other value.yaml files from the repository.

Challenge 1 – "Your Own Dataspace"

Try to set up your local dataspace and learn how the communication/transfer between two EDCs works.
The challenge is based on the E2E adopter journey tutorial and its deployment via the Umbrella Helm Charts.

Goals

  • Getting familiar with Umbrella Helm Charts, Kubernetes, Minikube, and its dashboard
  • Understanding the architecture
  • Working with a local dataspace deployment
  • Playing around with assets, policies, etc.
  • Communication between two (already registered) EDCs
  • Providing feedback

Challenge 2 – "Second Data Consumer"

Try to activate and deploy (locally) a second EDC and play with different assets and policies.

Goals

  • Further understand the power of Helm charts
  • Get to know the configuration parameters
  • Experiment with restricted assets and policies

Challenge 3 – "Open Challenge"

Try to activate the Portal (and other components).

Goals

  • Further understand the power of Helm charts
  • Get to know the configuration parameters

πŸ’‘ Hints for the Tutorial

  • The tutorial was not 100% tested on Windows – please avoid using it on that platform.
  • Follow the steps as they are described. Even though there is no numbering, the steps are given in a specific order.
  • You can use the provided cURL commands or the Bruno collection (which is very comfortable).
  • Try to understand the payloads – don’t just copy and paste.

πŸ“Ž Downloads and Useful Links