The customized and deployed TRICK platform for TC pilot: how we achieved the final version

The long journey of TRICK is coming to an end, and we can finally give concrete form to the product traceability standardisation activities at the heart of the project: that is the development of a complete, reliable, SME-affordable and standardised platform for data collection, secured by Blockchain.

With the conclusion of Task 5.2 “Integration and testing”, led by Domina, the project is now capable of presenting the final version of the demonstrators. This process that refines the first version of the platform for Textile/Clothing, and the related replication dedicated to Food sector, already released, included issues regarding rolling out the new versions of the platform (for both the TC and the Food pilot) and the tools, architecture updates, bug fixing, code evolution, management of unexpected events. Moreover, the Task bring an end to all the technical and development activities.

Here we will focus our reporting on the ultimate version of the demonstrator for the Textile pilot, and it is worth reminding the three concrete objectives underlying the development of the platform:

1. The collection of data coming from different actors of the textile value chain, that is the most important information related to a product (e.g. product identification, bill of component, composition, origin, process steps, certifications, sustainability information
2. Aggregation and classification of the collected data to feed the 6 platform services

1. The creation of an open platform to collect and share data among several actors (e.g. companies, certification authorities, national authorities) and other platforms.

In wider terms the aims of the Task (delved more deeply in the related D5.3 “Customized and deployed platform for TC pilot, second version”) can be summarized as follow:

• provide the updates about the information flow and related components

• report the last integration work of the software modules toward the final version of the TRICK platform customized for TC pilot
• describe the deployment updates
• refer about testing and quality control, reporting about issues solved
• describe the work carried out toward the finalization of each component and service, including Blockchain
• provide the final platform APIs list and installation guide for technicians

In the following paragraphs, alongside the main steps for the final development stages of the textile platform, we will examine the fine-tuning of the PCO service, two activities led by Domina in its role of technical manager and IT provider for the TC pilot:

1. Updates on the Security Broker
2. Platform deployment and integration 
3. Service integration updates
4. Updates on PCO
5. Lesson learned

1. Updates on the Security Broker

 The TRICK platform will provide a wide range of services, accessible to different types of stakeholders at different stages of confidentiality. In this context the platform architecture, including the skeleton to support both core and business services, cannot miss the security aspects. Therefore, a crucial role is played by the implementation of a component for orchestrating the security related to the access and management of the stored data (e.g. Blockchain infrastructures and databases): that is the Security Broker, a component able to provide all the full security functionalities and to regulate the access to production data by assuring the management of authentication, authorization, confidentiality and privacy.

After the implementation of the component provided in Task 2.4, Domina arranged for some updates in the following sections, in support of some specific needs identified within different use-cases showing that a refinement of the components was necessary:

• Authentication methods, adding the support to eIDAS (https://eidas.ec.europa.eu/efda/home)
• Authorisation and permissions
• User and organization management

Security Broker in TRICK platform architecture

2. Platform deployment, integration and testing

The TRICK platform is composed of core and business services which ingest, manipulate, transform and enrich Textile and Food value chain information. The guidelines for the development of services within the platform remained as they were in the first version, and we summarise them here for the readers’ convenience:

• each microservice implements its own logic, interfaces and temporary data storage of a core or business service. Consequently, the support of a container technology in favour of scalability and adoptability is required. For TRICK, we chose Docker technology.
• definition of a Kubernetes recipe that orchestrates the set of core and business services on the TRICK elaboration cluster. Kubernetes is selected to support scalability and integration of several Docker containers on the basis of its functionalities and for the wide adoption on the main cloud providers.
• configuration and management of 2 Kubernetes cluster to run the services of TRICK platform: one devoted to development and test and another for production.
• adoption of a software versioning system (Gitlab platform) to simplify the service development and deployment.

However, a change was necessary regarding the Circular assessment service (CAS) because of an issue related to its integration. This service takes as inputs the data collected by the platform, together with a set of technical information coming from the partner Deutsche Institute für Textil- und Faserforschung Denkendorf (DITF), that are part of the company know-how.  CAS performs a set of elaborations with this data to give a result by using DITF internal services that cannot be moved directly to the TRICK platform. Therefore, the integration strategy was changed to manage the Circular assessment service as external service, similarly to the AIDA ones (provided by Italian Customs - CUS).

In testing, Domina adopted the Fuzzy logic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzy_logic) to better identify security problems or internal server errors in case of wrong or malformed inputs. This is one of the most frequently used approaches for software testing, with the definition of a set of random or pseudo-random values. In the case of TRICK we defined the input values of two categories:

• in the same domain of the corresponding type, i.e. whether the input type is a number the passed value is also a number
• in the other domain of the corresponding type, i.e. whether the input type is a number the passed value is for example a string.

3. Service integration updates

Regarding the Textile & Clothing pilot, the TRICK platform provides 6 services, all related to the product and supply chain traceability concept:

• Social and ethical assessment
• PCO (Product Certification of Origin)
• Health Protection
• PEF and CO2 footprint
• Circular assessment (CAS)
• AI for Blockchain services

All of the services were already integrated in the previous technical sessions, however in this latest tranche of activities, some lesser updates were added and some Bug fixes were introduced.

4. Updates on PCO

Among these 6 services, Domina focused on the release of the PCO (Preference Certificate of Origin) digitalization, a procedure providing the following useful and concrete objectives in import-export transactions:

• make easier the extra EU export activities
• reduce the timing related to export activities by avoiding customs physical checks
• give a digital evidence (by blockchain notarisation) of the exportation to the customs and the proof of origin to the customers.

During the first integration phase the PCO service reached a very good integration status, also considering the interaction with external services of AIDA (Italy Customs service). However, two activities have been carried out during the second integration stage related to the introduction of document signature for AIDA data exchange, and to the Bug fixing.

The former is a fundamental activity to establish a real communication between the PCO service and the AIDA. This is a public service, and it is subjected to strong security requirements, therefore, it requires digital signatures applied to exchanged XML documents.

The following figure depicts the simplified sequence diagram for the PCO service and it represents the XML document interactions between the TRICK platform and AIDA.

5. Lesson learned

The most evident barrier during the integration activities, was the difficulty encountered by the partners in following the micro-service approach and shipping the service by using a set of Docker containers. Therefore, DOMINA provided the support to build the set of required containers to host the business service, putting at disposal its internal skills to meet the requirements of Task 2.5. The task officially closes the technical and development activities related to the project, and now the latest step of TRICK for the next few months belong to the exploitation and refer to the future commercial strategies of the IT partners and their investment routes.