Australian Dataspaces Testbed Platform

Project Overview

The Australian Dataspace Testbed Platform is an innovative endeavour led by the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC) in collaboration with RMIT’s RACE (RMIT Advanced Cloud Ecosystem). This platform is designed to establish a framework for secure, sovereign data-sharing environments in Australia, enabling trusted exchanges among research, industry, and government sectors, all while maintaining control and ownership of data.

We are building an Australian prototype dataspace testbed, leveraging the International Data Spaces Association (IDSA) testbed distribution. Deployed across multi-cloud environments (AWS and Nectar Cloud), it offers critical testing and demonstration capabilities. This supports ARDC’s vision of a dynamic dataspace ecosystem tailored to Australian research needs. You can read more about the ARDC Dataspaces project here.

Objectives

Prototype Deployment: Deliver an Australian IDSA dataspace testbed prototype across multiple clouds, enabling testing and demos for ARDC use cases. Infrastructure Integration: Seamlessly integrate with key national research infrastructures—Australian Access Federation (AAF) and Research Data Australia (RDA)—with on-demand custom test dataspace processes.

Project Outputs

This prototype has produced the following primary outcomes:

• A service platform, utilising AAF authentication to allow users to easily and repeatably deploy dataspace testbeds.
• A simple to use web GUI-based dashboard automatically deployed with each testbed, allowing users to easily operate their testbeds. The dashboard support all create and delete operations, and automates all the complexity behind using the IDSA dataspace connectors.
• The dashboard also demonstrates how the dataspace testbed can be integrated with the Research Data Australia (RDA) platform.

Getting Started