What is a Project in My DataLake Services

A Project in My DataLake Services is a logical workspace that organizes access to data, users, and computational resources within the DEDL ecosystem. It defines a secure environment where members of an approved group can work with shared datasets, API credentials, and processing services under clearly defined permissions.

Projects serve as the fundamental building blocks for how resources are managed and accessed on the platform.

What a Project Represents

Each project in My DataLake Services represents a collaboration space that brings together users, datasets, and services under a common purpose. Projects are used to:

  • Define data access scope — determine which datasets are visible or usable by project users.

  • Manage roles and permissions — control who can create, read, modify, or delete project resources.

  • Provide isolated credentials — generate API keys and service accounts limited to the project.

  • Enable resource accounting — track usage and performance per project.

This ensures that every dataset request, API call, and computation happens within the boundaries of a specific project.

Why Projects Are Important

Projects are central to secure and organized access within DEDL. They provide the following key advantages:

  1. Security and Access Control Projects enforce strict access separation between teams and organizations. Only users explicitly added to a project can access its resources.

  2. Resource Management Each project manages its own Service Accounts (API keys) and other credentials used by applications or automated workflows.

  3. Accountability and Traceability All activities — from data access to service calls — are logged and attributed to the project. This allows for auditability and transparent resource tracking.

  4. Collaboration Projects enable multiple users to share data, tools, and compute resources efficiently. Roles such as Administrator and User define how much control each participant has.

Why It Is Important to Work Within a Project

All user operations within My DataLake Services must take place inside a project context. This ensures that permissions, data visibility, and resource usage are properly managed and auditable.

Depending on how a user is involved in projects, there are two possible scenarios:

Create your own project(s)

  • You can create one or more projects under your account and become their Administrator.

  • You cannot accept invitations to other projects while being the creator of your own.

  • You can, however, invite other registered users to join your project.

Accept an invitation to someone else’s project

  • You can join projects owned by other users as a User or be promoted to Administrator within that project.

  • You cannot create new projects of your own under the same account while participating in another user’s project.

These rules ensure consistent ownership structures and prevent overlapping project hierarchies within the same user account.

Typical Lifecycle of a Project

The lifecycle of a project in My DataLake Services usually includes the following stages:

  1. Creation A user requests a new project from the My DataLake Services dashboard, describing its purpose and providing justification for access.

  2. Approval The project request is reviewed by platform administrators. Once validated, the project becomes active and visible in the user’s dashboard.

  3. Active Use

    Users can now:

    • Create and manage Service Accounts (API keys).

    • Access approved datasets and storage locations.

    • Interact with Edge Services and other DEDL components.

  4. Automatic Expiration Every project has a default lifetime of six months. When this period expires, the system automatically deactivates the project and restricts further access. Users may request an extension if the project remains active or ongoing. Such requests are reviewed by system administrators before the project is reactivated.

  5. Closure or Archival When a project is no longer needed, it can be closed or archived. This ensures that data and access permissions are preserved for compliance purposes but no longer active in daily operations.

Administrative and Membership Structure

The Administrator of the first project within a profile can create additional projects under the same profile and automatically becomes the Administrator of each new project.

Users from other profiles can be invited to participate in one or more projects, enabling cross-organizational collaboration.

Furthermore, an existing Administrator can promote a User within a project to also become an Administrator, granting them equal rights to manage members, credentials, and permissions.

This flexible model supports both individual and team-based management while maintaining security and traceability across all activities.

Roles Within a Project

Projects include predefined roles to ensure proper governance:

  • Administrator – creates and manages project users, credentials, and access rights; can also promote users to administrators.

  • User – can use project resources such as datasets and API keys.

Each role is designed to align with operational and security principles defined by the DEDL governance framework.

Integration with Other Services

A project is not an isolated entity — it connects to other components of the DEDL ecosystem:

  • It provides authentication context for using Edge Services and other DEDL applications.

  • It defines authorization boundaries for dataset queries through DEDL APIs.

  • It enables service-to-service communication through API keys managed under project-specific Service Accounts.

In this way, projects form the backbone of secure collaboration and controlled resource usage in My DataLake Services.