# Workspaces

Think of an e6data workspace as a self-contained collection of everything you need to start querying your data. It is the topmost layer of isolation in e6data.

Examples: A workspace can be created for a business line like Sales or Marketing or based on SLA types like Business-Critical and Ad-Hoc.

The typical e6data workspace deploys the following components in a user's cloud:

* **IAM Layer**: Cross-cloud access to ensure secure connectivity between the user's cloud and the e6data control plane.
* **Storage Layer**:  Store temporary data, metadata, and logs used by the e6data catalogs and clusters.
* **Application Layer:** The e6data engine, cluster health management services, and other microservices.

For a Workspace to be usable, it will have to contain at least one Catalog & one Cluster.