FIWARE is an open-source ecosystem that promotes sustainability, interoperability and portability of smart solutions. It defines open standards for IoT, data management, and Big Data, enabling businesses to develop scalable solutions without vendor lock-in. FIWARE focusses on communication standards that make everything work well together in complex environments - think: multi-vendor situations, international contexts, interactions with data spaces...

What does this mean concretely?

1/ Standards for (context) data management

FIWARE defines a universal set of standards for context data management, which facilitates the development of smart solutions. FIWARE offers two flavours of the NGSI interfaces:

• NGSI-v2 offers JSON based interoperability used in individual Smart Systems
• NGSI-LD offers JSON-LD based interoperability used for Federations and Data Spaces

NGSI-v2 is easier to understand, and ideal for creating individual applications offering interoperable interfaces for web services or IoT devices. For situations requiring interoperability across apps and organisations (e.g. data spaces, system of systems approach, federations, ...), you'll need the NGSI-LD. The latter is also an ETSI-standard.

2/ Ecosystem & Community

FIWARE is an open ecosystem that unites all possible actors relevant for sustainable data interoperability. More concretely, this means:

• Diverse: Big and small companies, public authorities, governments and research actors. Check the members directory for concrete names.
• International: European from the start, but grew to a pan-european size over the years
• No vendor lock-in: Based on standards, different solution providers for every technology (architecture) block (e.g. context processing, analysis, broker, ...) and/or development tooling, many open source solutions

3/ Tech Catalogue & Knowledge Sharing

FIWARE maintains a curated catalogue of software platform components using the common API based. You can browse this catalogue here. Both information (news, events, ...) and opportunities (accelerator, funding calls, ...) are shared with the community. There are plenty of tutorials, trainings & webinars available to get people started.

Key domains? Smart ...

FIWARE technology is basically domain-agnostic, and you'll find it used in several application domains of digital transformation, like Smart Cities, Smart AgriFood, Smart Industry, Smart Water, Smart Energy, .... Most applications are either Smart Solutions, Digital Twins or Data Spaces. 

Smart City traffic management - a typical use case

In cities, data from different domains (e.g. real time traffic data, event calendar, infrastructure works planning, ANPR camera's, car-park avbailability info, public transport timetables...) is typically contained in silos, which often implies vendor lock-in. Cities face fragmented systems, struggle with integrating them, making them expensive and difficult to scale, which hinders growth and innovation.

By opting for FIWARE-complient building blocks (or adding complient extensions to existing blocks), the walls between the silo's disappear. The open standards are the basis, but the community offers best practices, hands-on experience with seamless data integration.

The standards are open, and many core components are available as open source, but don't forget to take the cost of implementation into account. Don't have the resources available? Then use the technology providers and integrators in the ecosystem, they offer hardware, consultancy and/or premium solutions to get you running much faster.

How do companies benefit from this?

Companies join to co-create innovations, accelerate digital transformation, and access business opportunities in global markets. Benefits for companies in the FIWARE ecosystem:

• Access to open-source, standardized solutions for IoT and smart applications.
• Avoid vendor lock-in and ensure scalability across platforms.
• Opportunity to collaborate on innovative digital transformation projects.
• Reach global markets with interoperable products.
• Network with partners across industries to enhance business opportunities.

Types of companies involved in the FIWARE ecosystem:

• Technology Providers: Develop and supply open-source solutions, middleware, and platforms (e.g., Atos, Red Hat).
• System Integrators: Offer consulting and integrate FIWARE solutions into businesses (e.g., Capgemini, Telefónica).
• End-users (Public/Private): Implement smart solutions in sectors like cities or industries (e.g., City of Vienna, ESA, Siemens).
• Startups/SMEs: Innovate and bring new smart services to market

Getting started with FIWARE?

Per definition, the domain where FIWARE offers solutions (data exchange, interoperability, data spaces, ...) is very complex. So be prepared that it will take you some time to grasp the capacities and capabilities of their standards, solutions and best practices.

If desk research fails to give you the overview you need, your best shot at getting started is probably by contacting a FIWARE evangelist

So, should you check it out?

Is FIWARE an ecosystem for you? If you are active in a "smart" domain (e.g. Smart Cities, Smart Tourism, Smart Mobility, …) and data-interoperability is important to you, then you should give it a look! Especially if you are operating in a Data Space context.

Related ecosystems

Data Spaces are multi-faceted, that's why some actors have united in the Data Spaces Business Alliance. Besides FIWARE, it concerns BDVA (focussing more on the data space aspects), GAIA-X (focussing on governance and legal aspects) and IDSA, the International Data Spaces Association (focussing on standards).

A bit less related, but also interesting are MyData (focussing on personal data in a human-centric way) and ITEA (focussing on collaborative software innovation for smart domains).