X-Road is a centrally managed distributed
Data Exchange Layer (DXL) between information systems.
Organizations can exchange information over the Internet using X-Road to ensure confidentiality, integrity and interoperability between data exchange parties.
The first X-Road iteration was developed and launched by
Estonia
Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...
's Information System Authority (RIA) in 2001. The source codes of its central components were released on October 3, 2016 under an
MIT License
The MIT License is a permissive free software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the late 1980s. As a permissive license, it puts only very limited restriction on reuse and has, therefore, high license comp ...
.
By February 7, 2018, Finland's and Estonia's data exchange layers were connected to one another.
In 2017 Finland and Estonia established the
Nordic Institute for Interoperability Solutions (NIIS) to continue the development of the X-Road core.
Features
According to their web page, "The X-Road is an open source data exchange layer solution that enables organizations to exchange information over the Internet. The X-Road is a centrally managed distributed integration layer between Information Systems that provides a standardized and secure way to produce and consume services. The X-Road ensures confidentiality, integrity and interoperability between data exchange parties."
History
X-Road was started in 1998 as a pilot project under Ministry of Economy and Communications and first prototype was publicly presented in 2000. One of the main reasons behind architectural choice of distributed data storage was massive data leak of 1996, where government contractor and computer specialist Imre Perli created and marketed a "superdatabase" containing personal data from various government sources.
The Information System Authority (RIA) at the Ministry of Economy and Communications, developed X-Road and launched the first version in 2001
and holds the registered trademark, X-Road.
On October 28, 2014 the
government of Namibia
The government of Namibia consists of the executive, the legislative and the judiciary branches. The Cabinet is the executive organ of government, implementing the laws of the country. It consists of the president, the prime minister and his dep ...
entered into a two-year agreement with the
e-Governance Academy
e-Governance Academy (eGA, Estonian: ''E-riigi Akadeemia Sihtasutus'') is a non-profit foundation that assists public sector institutions worldwide in digital transformation. The organization was founded in 2002, by a joint initiative of the Gov ...
to implement a data exchange layer based on the X-Road technology.
On October 3, 2016 the source code of central components of X-Road was released under an
MIT License
The MIT License is a permissive free software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the late 1980s. As a permissive license, it puts only very limited restriction on reuse and has, therefore, high license comp ...
.
February 7, 2018, Finland's and Estonia's data exchange layers were connected to one another.
X-Road is used nationwide in the Estonian public administration (X-tee) and in the Suomi.fi Data Exchange Layer (Suomi.fi-palveluväylä) service. X-Road has built-in support for connecting two X-Road ecosystems with each other which enables a native cross-border data exchange between Estonia and Finland.
Nordic Institute for Interoperability Solutions (NIIS)
The
Nordic Institute for Interoperability Solutions (NIIS) was founded jointly in June 2017 by Finland and Estonia, with a mission "to develop e-governance solutions...with the X-Road technology used nationwide in the Estonian X-tee and in the Finnish Suomi.fi Data Exchange Layer services".
The NIIS manages, develops, verifies, and audits X-Road's source code; administers documentation, business and technical requirements; conducts development; develops and implements principles of licensing and distribution; provides second-line support for members, and engages in international cooperation.
X-Road and blockchain
By April 2018, a number of articles erroneously stated that X-Road is a "blockchain-based technology or it utilizes blockchain internally".
According to an April 18, 2018 article by Petteri Kivimäki the CTO of the Nordic Institute for Interoperability Solutions (NIIS),
"There is no blockchain technology in the X-Road."
Kivimäki "was the technical lead of X-Road implementation project in Finland and was coordinating the joint open source development of the X-Road solution between Finland and Estonia."
Still, there are still contested claims around the use of blockchain in combination with X-Road.
See also
*
E-Estonia
e-Estonia refers to the digital society of Estonia, which facilitates its citizens' and residents' interactions with the state through the use of ICT solutions. Estonian e-services created under this initiative include e-Tax Board, e-Business, e ...
*
Once-only principle
References
{{reflist, 30em
External links
Data Exchange Layer X-Roade-EstoniaNordic Institute for Interoperability Solutions and X-RoadSuomi.fi Data Exchange LayerX-Road CommunityX-Road FactsheetX-Road Source Code and DocumentationNetherland's Implementation of a variation of X-Road, written in Go
Open government
Open data
Estonia–Finland relations
Software using the MIT license
Free and open-source software