Glossary

Term	Abrv.	Description
Asset Administration Shell	AAS	see "Digital Twin"
Aspect Servers (Submodel Endpoints)		Companies participating in the interorganizational data exchange provides their data over aspect servers. The so called "submodel-descriptors" in the AAS shells are pointing to these AspectServers which provide the data-assets of the participating these companies in Catena-X.
Bill of Materials	BoM	A Bill of Materials is a comprehensive list of materials, components, sub-assemblies, and the quantities of each needed to manufacture or build a product. It serves as a structured document that provides information about the raw materials, parts, and components required for the production process.
Business Partner Number	BPN	A BPN is the unique identifier of a partner within Catena-X
Business Partner Number Legal Enitity	BPNL	A legal entity is a juridical person or group which has legal rights and duties related to contracts, agreements, obligations etc. The term applies to any kind of organization which was founded under the particular set of law governing the country.
Business Partner Number Site	BPNS	A site is a delimited geographical area where a legal entity does business (geographical address with geo coordinates). Providing a primary physical address for a site is mandatory. It is possible to specify further physical addresses for this location. P.O. box details are only possible in addition to the physical address. A site has a 1:n relation to addresses, means at least 1 address is necessary and multiple addresses are possible.
Business Partner Number Address	BPNA	An address is a collection of information to describe a position, e.g. using street names or P.O. boxes as references. In addition an address consists of several postal attributes, e.g. Country, Region (State), District, Postal Code, City.
CatalogItem		A "CatalogItem" from EDC is a synonym for "Contract Offer".
Contract Offer		A "Contract Offer" is a synonym for "CatalogItem" from EDC.
Data Space		Data Spaces are the key concept for a large-scale, cross-border data economy. This is also the vision of the Gaia-X initiative for a data infrastructure in Europe. The International Data Space Association (IDSA) contributes significantly to this with the architectural model, interfaces, and standards.
Digital Twin	DT	The Digital Twin is the key technology of Industry 4.0 and connects the physical world with the digital world and acts as an enabler of the Catena-X network. It is based on a standardized programming interface of the Industrial Digital Twin Association (IDTA) and its Asset Administration Shell.
Digital Twin Registry	DTR	The Digital Twin Registry is a registry which lists all digital twins and references their aspects including information about the underlying asset, asset manufacturer, and access options (e.g. aspect endpoints).
Eclipse Dataspace Connector	EDC	The Eclipse Data Space Connector (EDC) is a standard and policy-compliant connector that can be used within the scope of Catena-X, but also more generally as a connector for Data Spaces. It is split up into Control-Plane and Data-Plane, whereas the Control-Plane functions as administration layer and has responsibility of resource management, contract negotiation and administer data transfer. The Data-Plane does the heavy lifting of transferring and receiving data streams. For more information see: EDC Connector , Tractus-X EDC (Eclipse Dataspace Connector)
Edge		see Traversal Aspect
Item Relationship Service	IRS
Item Graph		The result returned via the IRS. This corresponds to a tree structure in which each node represents a part of a virtual asset.
Managed Identity Wallet	MIW	The Managed Identity Wallets (MIW) service implements the Self-Sovereign-Identity (SSI) readiness by providing a wallet hosting platform including a decentralized identifier (DID) resolver, service endpoints and the company wallets itself. For more information see: eclipse-tractusx/managed-identity-wallet
Multi Tier Parts Data Chain	MTPDC	Formerly known Service Name: Multi Tier Parts Data Chain
Policy Store		The Policy Store is an IRS component which provides an interface for getting, adding and deleting accepted IRS EDC policies. These policies will be used to validate EDC contract offers. EDC contract offers must include permissions that are equal to permission defined by an admin user in order to be allowed to use in IRS use cases. For more information see: Policy specification for Catena-X verifiable credentials
Parts Relationship Service	PRS	Formerly known Service Name: Parts Relationship Service
Self-Sovereign Identity	SSI	For more information see: ssi-docu
Shell		see "Asset Administration Shell"
Traversal Aspect		aka Edge: Aspect which the IRS uses for traversal through the data chain. Identified by a parent-child or a child-parent relationship. Samples: SingleLevelBomAsPlanned, SingleLevelBomAsBuilt and SingleLevelUsageAsBuilt
Verifiable Credential	VC	For more information see: Verifiable Credentials

Term

Abrv.

Description

Asset Administration Shell

AAS

see "Digital Twin"

Aspect Servers (Submodel Endpoints)

Companies participating in the interorganizational data exchange provides their data over aspect servers. The so called "submodel-descriptors" in the AAS shells are pointing to these AspectServers which provide the data-assets of the participating these companies in Catena-X.

Bill of Materials

BoM

A Bill of Materials is a comprehensive list of materials, components, sub-assemblies, and the quantities of each needed to manufacture or build a product. It serves as a structured document that provides information about the raw materials, parts, and components required for the production process.

Business Partner Number

BPN

A BPN is the unique identifier of a partner within Catena-X

Business Partner Number Legal Enitity

BPNL

A legal entity is a juridical person or group which has legal rights and duties related to contracts, agreements, obligations etc. The term applies to any kind of organization which was founded under the particular set of law governing the country.

Business Partner Number Site

BPNS

A site is a delimited geographical area where a legal entity does business (geographical address with geo coordinates). Providing a primary physical address for a site is mandatory. It is possible to specify further physical addresses for this location. P.O. box details are only possible in addition to the physical address. A site has a 1:n relation to addresses, means at least 1 address is necessary and multiple addresses are possible.

Business Partner Number Address

BPNA

An address is a collection of information to describe a position, e.g. using street names or P.O. boxes as references. In addition an address consists of several postal attributes, e.g. Country, Region (State), District, Postal Code, City.

CatalogItem

A "CatalogItem" from EDC is a synonym for "Contract Offer".

Contract Offer

A "Contract Offer" is a synonym for "CatalogItem" from EDC.

Data Space

Data Spaces are the key concept for a large-scale, cross-border data economy. This is also the vision of the Gaia-X initiative for a data infrastructure in Europe. The International Data Space Association (IDSA) contributes significantly to this with the architectural model, interfaces, and standards.

Digital Twin

The Digital Twin is the key technology of Industry 4.0 and connects the physical world with the digital world and acts as an enabler of the Catena-X network. It is based on a standardized programming interface of the Industrial Digital Twin Association (IDTA) and its Asset Administration Shell.

Digital Twin Registry

DTR

The Digital Twin Registry is a registry which lists all digital twins and references their aspects including information about the underlying asset, asset manufacturer, and access options (e.g. aspect endpoints).

Eclipse Dataspace Connector

EDC

The Eclipse Data Space Connector (EDC) is a standard and policy-compliant connector that can be used within the scope of Catena-X, but also more generally as a connector for Data Spaces. It is split up into Control-Plane and Data-Plane, whereas the Control-Plane functions as administration layer and has responsibility of resource management, contract negotiation and administer data transfer. The Data-Plane does the heavy lifting of transferring and receiving data streams. For more information see: EDC Connector , Tractus-X EDC (Eclipse Dataspace Connector)

Edge

see Traversal Aspect

Item Relationship Service

IRS

Item Graph

The result returned via the IRS. This corresponds to a tree structure in which each node represents a part of a virtual asset.

Managed Identity Wallet

MIW

The Managed Identity Wallets (MIW) service implements the Self-Sovereign-Identity (SSI) readiness by providing a wallet hosting platform including a decentralized identifier (DID) resolver, service endpoints and the company wallets itself. For more information see: eclipse-tractusx/managed-identity-wallet

Multi Tier Parts Data Chain

MTPDC

Formerly known Service Name: Multi Tier Parts Data Chain

Policy Store

The Policy Store is an IRS component which provides an interface for getting, adding and deleting accepted IRS EDC policies. These policies will be used to validate EDC contract offers. EDC contract offers must include permissions that are equal to permission defined by an admin user in order to be allowed to use in IRS use cases. For more information see: Policy specification for Catena-X verifiable credentials

Parts Relationship Service

PRS

Formerly known Service Name: Parts Relationship Service

Self-Sovereign Identity

SSI

For more information see: ssi-docu

Shell

see "Asset Administration Shell"

Traversal Aspect

aka Edge: Aspect which the IRS uses for traversal through the data chain. Identified by a parent-child or a child-parent relationship.

Samples: SingleLevelBomAsPlanned, SingleLevelBomAsBuilt and SingleLevelUsageAsBuilt

Verifiable Credential

For more information see: Verifiable Credentials