The document summarizes the Software Cluster, a leading-edge cluster competition in Germany that brings together software companies, universities, and research organizations across southwest Germany. The Software Cluster's objectives are cooperative research and development to support digital transformation, growth of the software industry and jobs, and increasing international visibility. It focuses on developing emergent software that can dynamically adapt to market needs through interaction of components and services on the Internet of Things and Services. Example projects under the Software Cluster include developing platforms for innovative internet services, enterprise software solutions, and local electricity trading technologies.

1. SCIKE
Introducing Software Cluster
Saarbrücken, August 8th, 2018
Prof. Dieter Rombach (Fraunhofer IESE)

2. © Fraunhofer IESE
Introduction: Leading-Edge Cluster Competition
 Clusters network a region’s companies, universities, research institutes and other players along
the value chain.
 They combine strengths and create synergies which foster research and innovation.
 The location becomes more attractive – for skilled personnel, for investors and for those
involved locally. Throughout the world, clusters are supported as a way of increasing regional
innovation capacity and competitiveness.
 With the launch of the Leading-Edge Cluster Competition in 2007, the Federal Ministry of
Education and Research (BMBF) introduced Germany’s first nationwide, cluster funding
programme, open to all technologies and to be made conditional on a long-term strategy.
 In a total of three competition rounds, an independent jury selected 15 Leading-Edge Clusters
from more than 80 competition entries. These clusters receive funding of up to 40 million euros
each over a period of five years.
1

3. © Fraunhofer IESE
Software Cluster: Region
 The Software-Cluster covers a region in the southwest of
Germany, and includes the key software development
centers in Darmstadt, Kaiserslautern, Karlsruhe,
Saarbrücken and Walldorf.
 The cluster region is host to universities, research
organizations and companies, large and small,
building a world-class ecosystem that drives software
research, development and sales.
 Some 11,000 software companies from the region
employ more than 120,000 people.
 Software expertise - above all in relation to enterprise
software - is the one common element within the cluster
region.
2
The Software-Cluster is Europe‘s Silicon Valley
for enterprise software.

4. © Fraunhofer IESE
Software Cluster: Objectives
3
• Cooperative research, development and evaluation as well
as the international exploitation and marketing of software
for digital companies in an Internet society.
Cooperation
• The Software-Cluster helps its partners to recruit new talent,
to train the workforce, to find new business and to exploit
market opportunities. Start-ups are supported.
Growth
• The Software-Cluster aims to become an internationally
visible and active player in the global software industry, able
to attract, create and secure high-quality jobs.
Visibility

5. © Fraunhofer IESE
Software Cluster: Idea
 Emergent software for digital companies
 In digital companies, all data relating to processes, equipment and resources of a
physical company’s environment are available at all times in precise chronological and
spatial resolution.
 The cluster intends to achieve this by developing concepts, technologies and business
processes for emergent software. Emergent software adapts dynamically to the
requirements of the market and the business environment (adaptivity), supports complex
corporate networks (agility) and facilitates innovative services on the future Internet.
 A crucial prerequisite for the Internet of Services and Things, as well as for the transfer of
processes to the cloud, is the guarantee of a continuously high level of security, data
protection and service quality. In the Software-Cluster, IT security is therefore one of the
most important research and development issues. .
4

6. © Fraunhofer IESE
Software Cluster: Reference Models
5

7. © Fraunhofer IESE
Software-Cluster: Research Topics
6
Interoperability
IT Security
InteroperabilityInteroperability Adaptivity
User Interfaces IT Security
Process
Innovations
Data and
Platform
Economies

8. © Fraunhofer IESE
Software-Cluster Projects: EMERGENT
 Companies will only be able to maintain and strengthen
their economic performance if they make the transition to
so-called digital companies, for which ICT is the decisive
driver for product and process innovations.
 The term emergent software stands for a new category of
innovative information systems that arise across companies
from the interaction of individual components and services
in the Internet of Things and Services.
 The use of emergent software allows a dynamic
adaptation to the requirements of the market, the support
of complex and dynamic business processes and thus
enables innovative services in the future Internet.
7

9. © Fraunhofer IESE
Software-Cluster Projects: InDiNet
 The aim of the software cluster project "Innovative
Services in the Future Internet" is to develop a platform to
support service providers in the development of new
business models through tried and tested procedures,
guidelines and templates so that they can position their
offers in open marketplaces.
 To this end, InDiNet looks at business-critical enterprise
applications that place very high demands on availability,
quality and security and strives for consistent quality
management across platform, application and company
boundaries.
 Support for interoperability and the associated
consideration of highly integrated and networked systems
are further unique features of InDiNet.
8

10. © Fraunhofer IESE
Software-Cluster Projects: SINNODIUM
 "Software innovations for the digital enterprise"
(SINNODIUM) follows on from the previous projects in the
Top Cluster competition, links the various research strands
and leads the overall project to an integrated conclusion.
 First prototype solutions for the next generation of
enterprise software - "emergent software" - can
dynamically and flexibly combine a multitude of
components from different manufacturers and thus trigger
an innovation boost in digital companies across all
industries.
 In SINNODIUM, medium-sized and large software
companies worked together with research partners on
integrated application scenarios for emergent enterprise
software in the areas of smart retail (trade), smart
production (industry) and smart services (services and
logistics).
9

11. © Fraunhofer IESE
Software-Cluster Projects: PeerEnergyCloud
 Private households are increasingly becoming producers of
renewable energy. Since this decentrally generated energy
can only be stored or transported over long distances at
great technical and financial expense, a timely, local
consumption of this energy is advantageous from an
economic point of view. However, this requires the ability
to trade local overcapacities at short notice, for example
on an electronic trading platform.
 The aim of "PeerEnergyCloud" was the research and
development of cloud-based technologies for electronic
platforms. This includes the establishment of a virtual
marketplace for local electricity trading and the design and
development of innovative recording and forecasting
procedures within a so-called "micro grid".
 The integration of local sensors and actuators at the end
user via a separately secured fiber optic line allows the
Smart Micro-Grid Cloud services to access usage data in
real time, e.g. for forecasting purposes.
10