Creating Trusts between UCS Samba/AD and Native Microsoft Active Directory Domains

Logo Samba, Sprechblase "what do you think"
In this article we would like to inform all IT administrators and IT-interested people about the possibilities of a trust between two domains (UCS Samba/AD and Microsoft AD). To set up a trust is to give users of one domain access to the resources of another. This can increase the scope for actions in some situations!

In our example, we will specifically refer to the interaction between Samba in UCS and Microsoft Windows, explaining in detail how a so-called trust relationship can be configured and informing about the current state of implementation.

First milestone of UCS 4.2 Released

We are very pleased to present the first milestone of Univention Corporate Server (UCS) 4.2. The milestone is for our system house and technology partners, app providers and interested parties, who want to take a first look at the upcoming release of UCS.

This milestone provides a preview of the new UCS portal, which makes it easy for end users to find installed apps in the UCS domain.

In addition to the updated Debian base distribution, this milestone provides an integrated pre-release version of the upcoming Samba 4.6 version, which will be available in UCS after finalization.

Univention Summit: Open systems necessary for companies, schools and society

Detailbild Univention Summit Agenda

300 experts at the Univention Summit 2017 in Bremen

About 300 participants met last week at the Univention Summit in Bremen. A central theme of the event was the importance of open systems for companies, schools, society and Germany as a business place. In the lecture and workshop program and the accompanying exhibition, software and hardware solutions as well as various aspects concerning the possibilities of open source were presented. Univention provided information about Univention Corporate Server (UCS), UCS@school and the business models of the Univention App Center. After the panel discussion with representatives of Lufthansa Systems, DB Systel and Univention, the best Bachelor and Master theses submitted to the Univention Graduate Prize were awarded.

Brief Introduction: Differences of the Cloud Services IaaS, PaaS and SaaS

Cloud computing illustration
Summer time is conference time in the IT world and anyone going to one or more of these events hears about the latest developments in cloud computing, wondering sometimes how to keep up with the sheer number of cloud services acronyms used in this industry.

So let us disentangle the secret code of cloud computing by having a look at what the meaning of the different services IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS actually is.

How to Install Open Source SuiteCRM and Empower Sales

The core sales tool for every business in our increasingly data-centric world is customer relationship management (CRM). Your sales benefits greatly from CRM by collecting the best data of your leads. Likewise, marketing and general business planning also profit a lot from having the right information about customers and potentials. Using easy, web-based CRM tools, even the smallest business can utilize their power today.

Sales tool out of the box

There are numerous CRM solutions on the market, each with their unique advantages. In my opinion and personal experience the Linux-based software SuiteCRM stands out as it offers a comprehensive and easy to use user interface that is ready to use out of the box, but can also be easily adapted to your unique situation if needed. SuiteCRM provides easily understandable overviews of your customer engagement process. Apart from lead and contract management it also includes project management, invoicing modules, further extensions, and it is open source.

With the following installation and operation guide I like to help you get SuiteCRM set up and running. Look how you can manage it with ease via UCS!

OX in a Box: A Self-Contained Open-Xchange Environment for Containers and Virtual Machines

Schaubild OX in a box

Container technologies like Docker make it possible for service providers to easily offer separated, private environments containing Open-Xchange and other services at a low footprint. But usually management of these services is a challenge.

Univention provides a complete open environment to run and manage Open-Xchange inside Docker and popular hypervisors. This includes life-cycle, patch and identity management (IdM), a management GUI for customers, connectors to Microsoft Active Directory, and the possibility to integrate a dozens of other applications.

Secure Operation of Existing Applications in the Corporate Environment with Open Source Tools

Last year I submitted my Master’s thesis titled “Secure Operation of Existing Applications in the Corporate Environment with Open Source Tools”, and successfully earned my degree in IT from Bremen University of Applied Sciences. My research focused in particular on the differences and the security-related advantages/disadvantages of server virtualization compared with operating system virtualization, which had undergone much less intense testing at the time.

As I can imagine that this is a topic which will also be of interest to some of you too, I decided to summarize the most important findings of my work here:

Univention App Center Provider Portal

Übersicht - App Center Provider Portal
In the new App Center Provider Portal we have now developed an extremely convenient and contemporary tool for software providers looking to include their solutions in the Univention App Center and subsequently maintain them.

The App Center is already home to more than 90 different apps developed for use in business IT, including groupware, ERP, CRM, and back-up solutions as well as solutions for a wide range of other application scenarios. Over 50 of these solutions are third-party apps from other developers and providers. For them, the App Center is the perfect channel for introducing their software to new user groups simply and easily. After all, as use of the free Core Edition of UCS and UCS as a subscription model with support and manufacturer’s warranty continues to become more and more widespread, the apps are readily available to an ever large number of organizations and private users.