Unified eXchange Platform (UXP)

UXP empowers organisations to collaborate and provide digital services by securely connecting their data on a trusted platform.

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UXP - infinitely scalable and secure data exchange technology

UXP is a world-renowned interoperability platform developed by Cybernetica. The technology has been specifically designed as an export-focused product, supporting state-level data exchange in emerging digital societies. UXP facilitates the development of seamless digital services in a decentralised, secure and infinitely scalable way. By standardising the exchange of data between both public and private sector organisations, UXP allows to achieve increased work efficiency and significant reductions in overheads. All this is achieved through the following UXP features:

Peer-to-peer data exchange over encrypted and mutually authenticated channels.

Distributed architecture with centralised governance enables to operate mission-critical infrastructure in a trusted way.

Avoidance of a “super-database” simplifies data management and decreases risks for a debilitating data breach or data leak.

No central point of failure and no central bottleneck, resulting in greater resilience, availability, and scalability.

Security by design principle reinforced with cryptography, trust services and PKI-based authentication.

Legally binding message transaction records through strong authentication of organisations, as well as time-stamping and signing of each communication.

Sovereignty of participating organisations is retained by allowing members full control of their data and services.

UXP privacy tools enable the creation of a transparent and privacy-preserving digital society.

Interoperability and secure data exchange are the foundations of a smart and secure digital society.

New business models, services, and value emerge by bringing together the data repositories of often independent stakeholders in a trusted environment. Over two decades, we have seen governments and businesses struggling with digital transformation projects. It can be difficult to start, manage change and risks, as well as to choose the right solution. An experienced partner and proven technology can help you achieve the intended impact.

Cybernetica acts as a strategic partner for governments and businesses by combining our secure data exchange technology, Unified eXchange Platform (UXP) with consulting services.

UXP unites data from organisations, information systems and databases, allowing service providers to retain control over their systems and data, while making them a member of an infinitely scalable and decentralised data exchange network. Based on the experience of developing the Estonian X-Road ecosystem, UXP solutions around the world are supported through research we perform on information security, cryptography, and e-governance.

UXP – enabler of digital state ecosystem

The creation of a data ecosystem, with UXP as a technological enabler, aims to leverage the data from individual data sources, which typically operate in silos. This will pave the way towards greater efficiency, improved services, and the generation of new business value.

The model case for UXP use is an e-government data exchange infrastructure. Here the communicating parties are governmental agencies and private companies needing a trusted platform for cooperation.

The UXP platform needs at least the following participants:

members that communicate with each other peer-to-peer. Each member has an information system to be connected with other members’ systems;

governing authority that coordinates communication activities, creates and distributes security policy, maintains and distributes registry of members, distributes gateway software;

trust service providers for certification and time-stamping services (can be the governing authority).

Benefits of UXP

As a foundation for e-governance and an enabler of digital service provision, the UXP interoperability and secure data exchange platform allows:

enhanced trust and cooperation between sovereign organisations;

automation of manual and repetitive tasks for higher work efficiency;

improved service delivery and service quality contributing to citizen satisfaction;

considerable cost savings and freeing up resources;

enhanced operational resilience and security;

transparency and compliance with data protection regulation.

Frequently asked questions

1. What are the applications of the UXP?

Cybernetica’s technical interoperability solution Unified eXchange Platform (UXP) is targeted at situations where several sovereign parties wish to leverage each other’s data to perform certain functions. This implies that these independent parties, with their own mandates and organisational boundaries, want to exchange data with each other while maintaining their sovereignty.

The model case for this situation is governmental data exchange infrastructure, which enables the development of digital services among public and private organisations. Here the communicating parties are governmental agencies and private companies that exchange data with each other through a single platform with the UXP software at its core. The UXP allows to establish a standardised communication channel that provides confidentiality, strong authentication and long-term proof value of the relayed messages.

2. What do terms like interoperability and data exchange mean in the context of the UXP?

We acknowledge that by now, interoperability and data exchange seem to have almost become buzzwords. It is therefore important to define what these terms mean in the context of our solution.

Cybernetica’s UXP follows the European Interoperability Framework (EIF). The EIF defines interoperability as “the ability of organisations to interact towards mutually beneficial goals” and suggests that interoperability consists of four different layers. Out of these, the UXP enables to build technical interoperability, providing technical standards and tools for different parties to share information in order to work together. Organisational, legal and semantic interoperability are not automatically achieved by the UXP solution.

In other words, the UXP allows to achieve technical interoperability by providing a platform for organisations to communicate with each other and share information over secure and trusted channels. In more technical terms, the UXP enables the exchange of business-critical data between sovereign information systems while keeping each transaction secure and legally valid. The ultimate goal of interoperability and data exchange in the UXP is to overcome fragmented data silos and offer services to perform certain functions.

3. For which domains is the UXP suitable?

The UXP is domain independent technology that can be used vertically within a single domain or horizontally across different domains. It can be used in small scale single-domain instances with few requirements (e.g., among universities in the education domain) or in society level multi-domain instances that have high availability and strict security requirements (e.g., government organisations sharing data with private companies and NGOs). The real value of UXP becomes apparent in the latter due to the gains from avoiding a large number of point-to-point integrations and the compound positive network effects that a large connected ecosystem can propel.

4. How does the UXP work?

Simply put, the UXP is a centrally governed data exchange platform that facilitates secure and legally valid exchange of information between sovereign organisations. On an organisational level, there is one single organisation with a mandate to run the platform and an unrestricted number of organisations that can connect with each other in a decentralised way. Thanks to built-in security measures, the connections between independent organisations are standardised, secure and seamless.

On a technical level, the UXP is a service-based solution: organisations can develop and publish their services on the UXP platform that can be consumed by other organisations. The UXP keeps the owner of the services in full control: they can decide and monitor which organisations can use their services. The UXP can be used by any organisation: public or private to provide and consume services. The UXP applies asymmetric cryptography, digital signatures and PKI in order to provide the security, scalability and legality of the system. The UXP is fully compliant with the EU eIDAS directive and Cybrnetica’s add-on privacy tools also support GDPR compliance. The UXP archives all the exchanged messages in a digitally signed form that is valid in court, if digital signatures are defined as legally binding in the local legislation.

5. What are the main benefits of the UXP?

The UXP is a powerful enabler of cost-efficient and seamless digital services. It allows to leverage data that is stored by different organisations, yet needed to deliver online services by offering a secure and standardised infrastructure to exchange data between different actors. The UXP not only allows to retain sovereignty of all participating parties, but also to maintain confidentiality and integrity of data thanks to its built-in security principles. By replacing point-to-point integrations with standardised ones, the UXP allows to increase work efficiency and achieve significant reductions in overheads. The UXP also contributes to simplifying data governance: data is stored and distributed across different organisations, which allows to better define data ownership and control, and avoid the creation of a costly and highly risky “super-database”.

Compared to traditional integration tools, the UXP is infinitely scalable and highly performant. The UXP can be used for connecting different organisations securely together on society level. It offers a unique set of information exchange, organisation governance, provenance, and privacy features that are required when a large number of organisations need to interoperate together in a digital environment. This allows to create an ecosystem where both public and private sector are interconnected.

6. Why should I choose the UXP?

The UXP is a proven interoperability solution already implemented by more than 10 governments around the world in mission critical applications. It is developed by Estonian based ICT company, Cybernetica, with 25 years of experience in developing and deploying information security, interoperability and digital identity solutions. On a day-to-day basis, UXP is developed and maintained by a dedicated and highly experienced product as well as devops team, who follow the wider industry trends as well as more specific needs of our customers.

The UXP architecture aspires to be future-proof by anticipating the scalability and availability needs of tomorrow. As a result, each UXP deployment can be built step-by-step with society-level full interoperability as a long-term goal. The UXP is also highly secure. The built-in security features allow UXP to address the whole spectrum of information security and data sovereignty related concerns in mission-critical environments. The UXP is also fully compliant with the EU eIDAS directive and its out-of-box privacy tools, Access Tracking and Consent Management, support compliance with the data protection and privacy requirements of GDPR.

7. How is the UXP different from other integration technologies?

At a high level of abstraction, integration technologies can be divided into enterprise-grade integration technologies (e.g., API Gateways, ESB, IPAAS and HIP) and society-level integration software platforms (e.g., UXP). The former are useful to help organisations access various data sources and services within an entity and the latter help a large number of autonomous organisations interoperate with each other in a trusted digital environment. On a society level, trust is paramount and the UXP achieves it using standardised security, PKI-based authentication, governance, and privacy features.

In addition to the differences in the scope of their primary use cases, enterprise-grade and society-level integration technologies also differ in terms of architecture and size. While enterprise-grade integration technologies have a centralised architecture, society-level integration technologies have a decentralised architecture. This is due to the fact that society-level integration happens on a much larger scale that calls for greater scalability and availability. The UXP distributed software architecture helps achieve both goals. Without a central node, the digital society can scale infinitely without performance problems. Decentralised architecture means that the digital society is also much less vulnerable to technical problems or debilitating cyber-attacks.

8. Which countries are using the UXP today?

The UXP is already used in a variety of different locations across the world. More than 10 governments from Malaysia to Ukraine, from Benin to Tunisia and Greenland have adopted the UXP as a foundation for digital service provision. Combining all these countries means that altogether more than hundreds of millions of people rely on the UXP technology as part of their daily life when interacting with government or private sector. In Japan, solely private sector actors are deploying the UXP in a quest to innovate their business model.

9. Is data exchange over the UXP safe?

The UXP has proven track record of operating in adverse environments while remaining secure and available at all times. This has been possible thanks to its distributed architecture that avoids central points of failure or attack as well as its other built-in security features. Security by design principle is also reinforced with additional features like elliptic curve cryptography, trust services and strong authentication of organisations for each information exchange. The high security level of the system makes the UXP suitable for mission critical infrastructure that deals with sensitive information.

10. How to get started with the UXP?

Contact our sales team to learn more about how the UXP can help you achieve your goals and what are the implementation specifics in your case. As a standard, implementation is done in phases, where the first phase normally consists of a thorough assessment period followed by technical deployment and training. We also compile a context-specific and customised strategy for the gradual deployment of the full-scale solution that will inform the future phases. We offer a possibility to first pilot the UXP solution on a small scale before wider adoption. Our fully managed interoperability-as-a-service offering allows to pilot the UXP in conditions of time as well as resource constraints.

11. How quickly can the UXP be implemented?

The estimated duration of any UXP implementation depends on the scope of work (e.g., the number of organisations to be connected) as well as other non-technical factors around stakeholder alignment, change management process and legal aspects. While the interoperability pilot can be completed within a matter of a few months, achieving full-scale interoperability needs to be seen as a long-term endeavour, requiring a far-reaching strategic commitment. Contact our sales team to understand the implementation timeline and specifics in your case.

12. Why trust Cybernetica instead of building in-house?

Cybernetica has earned a reputation of being a key player in the design and implementation of some of the world’s most advanced e-Government solutions. Our deep knowledge of e-Government and mission-critical software, earnt over decades of successful projects completed to the highest security standards, make us a valuable asset for those governments or organisations looking to create or improve digital systems in relevant domains.

Building in-house requires significant resources for development and continuous maintenance and upgrading of the system. Instead of finding in-house resources to re-invent the wheel, governments around the world are outsourcing proven building blocks from trusted players, such as Cybernetica. This way, the government can then focus their resources on more value-added activities and projects, that need to be pursued on top of the technical infrastructure.

Cybernetica was the technical architect of the X-Road interoperability solution that is currently the backbone of Estonia’s digital state. The UXP was developed as the successor to the X-Road and built specifically with export markets in mind. The UXP encompasses close to 20 years of work on the X-Road technology and by now surpasses it in terms of security and scalability. Instead of building data exchange platform in-house and from scratch, the UXP technology, its out-of-box add-ons and our seasoned team help you jump-start your digital transformation journey.

Additional documents

Unified Exchange Platform Brochure

Download UXP Brochure (.pdf)

Introduction to UXP Foundations

Download UXP White Paper (.pdf)

Phased and context-driven approach to interoperability

We deploy the UXP depending on customer requirements and digital readiness. Our strong focus on a phased approach and achieving tangible results every step of the way ensures a successful deployment. Considering local context is also paramount to keep the transition smooth and seamless.

  • Discovery

    We assess the current situation with all contextual nuances to uncover most valuable use cases for demo purposes. The discovery sessions can include compiling an implementation plan and a roadmap, identifying the gaps as well as milestones to achieving full-scale interoperability.

  • Proof of concept

    We guide the selection of the most impactful services to start with and set up a technical PoC to test the interoperability implementation approach. A PoC typically takes 6 months to a year over which the fit and feasibility of the selected solution is assessed before the full implementation.

  • Live environment

    We then scale up the technical environment to a full-scale solution meeting high availability and performance requirements. The implementation will follow a gradual, well-defined roadmap and a suitable pace matching the digital maturity of the customer.

  • Full support and maintenance

    We constantly upgrade and refine our technologies to ensure impeccable security and performance. Our customers can enjoy professional support service for smooth operations to ensure long-term impact.

References

UXP is created by the architects of the world-class e-government system of Estonia, the X-Road, which according to the World Bank Development Report is what allowed Estonia to become a truly digital society. Cybernetica built UXP technology with the knowledge gained through the creation and continuous improvement of the Estonian X-Road system for nearly two decades. Our independent research in the fields of interoperability, information security and information governance has allowed us to keep developing and refining the UXP technology further to help other governments replicate the success that Estonia has had for more than 20 years by now.

UXP-based solutions have been implemented across four continents to enable running online government services for millions of people from different countries and cultures.

UXP deployments timeline

Hear from our customers

“Cybernetica has been a strategic partner to Estonian government through the years - from creation of X-Road and cybersecurity foundations to preparing for the future through R&D.”

Siim Sikkut

Former Government Chief Information Officer of Estonia

“Success of the Estonian e-government model has inspired us to further develop the e-government system in Benin and redefine how we communicate with our citizens and how we build business opportunities. Launch of the secure data exchange framework is one step in our digital transformation process and it will not be the last.”

Maximilien Kpodjedo

Digital Adviser to the President of Benin

“Our collaboration with Cybernetica has been very successful. The Trembita is fully functional and serves as the backbone for public e-service development. To date, 2,000 electronic interactions between public authorities are made daily through the Trembita system and some 50 government institutions have shown willingness to connect their databases to the system.”

Mari Pedak

Team Leader of the EGOV4Ukraine project of e-Governance Academy

Interoperability technologies and solutions

Interested to know more?

For more information, please contact:

Adhele Tuulas

Head of Sales and Partnerships for Data Exchange

adhele.tuulas@cyber.ee