The Identity and Access Management (IAM) and portal, introduced as Nubus at the Univention Summit 2024, are already functional components of the Univention Corporate Server (UCS). To provide more clarity regarding our products, the Nubus product name will soon be visible within UCS.
At the Univention Summit 2024, we introduced Nubus: an open Identity and Access Management (IAM) system based on the technology stack of Univention Corporate Server (UCS). The first standalone pre-release of Nubus for Kubernetes has been released recently, prompting us to clarify what Nubus is and how it relates to UCS. This development will bring changes to our product presentations in our external communications, including a website relaunch and adjustments within our UCS and UCS@school products. With this blog article I’d like to give you an overview about these changes.
Table of Contents
What is Nubus?
Nubus is an Open Source solution for integrating identity and access management across various applications. It offers functionalities for administering users and groups along with their permissions, a user portal with integrated self-service as the initial access point for end users, numerous interfaces for application integration, and a unified single sign-on. Built on these interfaces, there are packaged integrations that make connecting popular applications particularly easy.
Most components of Nubus originate directly from UCS (e.g., OpenLDAP and Univention Directory Manager (UDM)) or can be installed under UCS via the Univention App Center (e.g., Keycloak). This will not change in the future. For the first time, Nubus became independently usable outside of UCS through its integration into the Sovereign Workplace openDesk. This integration was developed in collaboration with ZenDiS. Nubus connects the applications Open-Xchange, Nextcloud, Collabora, OpenProject, Xwiki, Jitsi, and Elements into a joint solution. The integrations between Nubus and these applications are based on the standard Nubus interfaces and, with the Alpha Release of Nubus for Kubernetes, are also be available independently of openDesk. Like all openDesk applications, Nubus will be deployed on Kubernetes.
We also aim to provide more clarity through terminology and naming: Univention’s IAM and portal will henceforth be called “Nubus.” Nubus can still be used as part of UCS and is now also be deployable on Kubernetes. The ongoing development of the components will be available for both operation on Kubernetes and within UCS.
What are Nubus and UCS?
- Nubus is Univention’s product for Identity and Access Management (IAM) and the portal. It can be operated under Kubernetes or as part of UCS.
- UCS provides an easy way to deploy Nubus along with other services and integrations on hardware or in virtual machines.
What changes does Nubus bring to UCS?
It is important to know that we will not change the functionality or technical structure of UCS. UCS will remain a Debian-based enterprise distribution that integrates identity and access management, as well as portals, and can be extended with integrations and applications via the App Center.
To make it clearer and more evident how essential Nubus is as a part of UCS, we will gradually make Nubus “visible” and “tangible” within UCS. This will roughly occur in the following steps:
- New Product Logos and Representations on the Website
With the recent relaunch of the Univention website, we introduced new logos for Univention products. The focus will be on the product logo for Nubus, which is designed to visualize its modularity and integration capabilities. Derived from this, new logos for UCS and UCS@school will also be created, as these products are based on Nubus.
- Representation of Nubus in UCS
As the next step, we will make Nubus more visible in UCS. This will begin with updating the logos and descriptions of the apps in the App Center. Gradually, this will extend to product documentation and representations within UCS itself. These changes will be noticeable to operators and administrators of UCS and UCS@school, but largely hidden from end users. One exception will be the Keycloak login form, which will feature the Nubus logo instead of the UCS logo. If a UCS instance has a custom theme configured, there will be no changes. - Visualizations, Handouts, and Other Product Materials
Recently we started updating product representations on our website, as well as in whitepapers and handouts. This revision will take some time. However, since the functionalities of UCS and UCS@school remain unchanged, the content of the existing documents will remain valid.
What changes for UCS or UCS@school customers?
First and foremost, we hope these changes will bring more clarity to our products. For our many long-standing customers, there will naturally be an adjustment period, which we aim to support as best as possible. It is important for us to emphasize that there will be no changes in the daily use of our products:
- The Functions of UCS and UCS@school do not change
UCS and the UCS@school built on it will retain the same functions, technical components, and apps. We are not changing any source code—we are merely improving names and terms. - The Scope of the Contracts does not change
There are no changes to our customer commitments. Within the framework of subscription contracts, we maintain the promised functionality and provide competent support. - The Prices do not change
We are not changing the scope of functions or other services promised within the subscription framework—and accordingly, we are not changing the prices either. - Customers are already using Nubus
Nubus is a part of UCS, and the changes to names and descriptions announced in this blog post are meant to make this clear. Everyone using UCS or UCS@school is already using Nubus as part of UCS—the visual changes will now make this evident. - UCS 5.2 continues this Path
All statements in this document apply equally to the current UCS 5.0 and the upcoming UCS 5.2.
And what about Kubernetes?
At the Summit, we announced Nubus as a standalone product for operation under Kubernetes. In December, as part of the openDesk project, we began releasing pre-versions on Open CoDE. On the 5th of June we release the first Alpha Release of Nubus for Kubernetes, which will be updated frequently to become a stable release.
Feedback and Contact
With the introduction of Nubus as a product name, our goal is to bring more clarity to the names of our products. We welcome your feedback—here in the blog, on help.univention.com or while talking to your contact person at Univention.
