Bremen, January 28, 2026 – Univention is responding to the growing demand for digital sovereignty in Europe and today introduces Nubus for Business Continuity, a new model that enables organizations to cost-effectively build an open source backup system for their IAM. The offering is aimed at administrations and companies that are critically evaluating their dependence on proprietary platforms but are currently unable or unwilling to make a complete switch.
The international geopolitical situation now makes it very clear how vulnerable organizations are that use uncontrolled software or cloud services in Europe. Unfortunately, due to the widespread use of Microsoft and other US cloud services, this applies to the vast majority of organizations in Europe. In the event of political tensions, trade conflicts, sanctions, or regulatory intervention—such as through so-called backdoors or the blocking of updates or cloud services—these organizations must expect direct disruptions to their business processes and, in some cases, data leaks.
Univention Nubus: Open IAM platform for sovereign IT infrastructures
A key component in effective concepts for digital sovereignty is the management of an organization’s IT users and their permissions, known as identity and access management (IAM). With Univention Nubus, Univention offers a solution that has long been established on the market and meets all requirements for digital sovereignty. These include, for example, the complete availability of the source code as open source software, the possibility of independent control and adaptation, and operation in the data center of your choice. Univention Nubus is part of openDesk and is used within openDesk and independently of it, for example in Schleswig-Holstein in leading projects for the implementation of digital sovereignty.
Resilience through robust backup and emergency architectures
A pragmatic step toward increasing resilience and digital sovereignty is to set up backup or business continuity systems that enable an immediate switch to an already implemented and integrated digitally sovereign emergency solution in the event of an emergency. Such systems also require a digitally sovereign IAM system, because if disruptions occur here, access to applications, systems, and data is usually completely blocked.
Nubus for Business Continuity as a sovereign IAM alternative
Univention is now addressing this need with “Nubus for Business Continuity” – a solution that specifically supports organizations in securing their digital independence quickly and pragmatically.
With “Nubus for Business Continuity”, administrations and companies can already set up a sovereign IAM alternative so that it is ready for use at short notice in an emergency. Nubus is set up in parallel to the existing IAM system and then remains in standby mode. This creates a resilient fallback level that ensures digital operability even under exceptional conditions.
The approach is particularly attractive for organizations that already critically assess their dependencies but do not want to implement a complete switchover immediately. “Nubus for Business Continuity” enables step-by-step, low-risk preparation for emergencies – without operational restrictions in day-to-day business. In addition, Univention partners and Univention itself can provide technical support to get you started, ensuring a reliable technical basis and realistic emergency scenarios.
This means that digital sovereignty does not become a long-term project for the future, but an immediately effective precautionary measure: strategically smart, economically sensible, and operationally available at short notice.
“With Nubus for Business Continuity, we are addressing the growing market need to protect against emergencies with digitally sovereign solutions even before a comprehensive open source migration. To this end, we provide our software with its full range of functions while avoiding duplicate costs as long as the emergency system is not used productively,” says Peter Ganten, CEO of Univention.
About Univention
Univention, headquartered in Bremen, is a provider of open source solutions for the efficient management of digital identities and the integration of applications. Openness, scalability and ease of use are central features of Univention products and serve to realize digital sovereignty, which ensures that user organizations have control over their own data and identities as well as the ability to independently design information technology.
The product Nubus bundles central Identity & Access Management, a web portal for easy access to applications and the option of integrating applications via standardized interfaces and integration packages.
Univention Corporate Server (UCS) is an open integration platform that includes Nubus and its own App Center and enables the central management of heterogeneous IT domains. UCS can be operated as a software appliance in your own data center as well as in the cloud.
And the solution UCS@school, which is tailored to the education sector, offers school authorities an optimized platform for the simple provision of services from different providers such as learning management systems, e-mail, cloud and office applications for schools via their own school portals. Users can be imported – also automatically – from national directories and managed centrally.
Univention’s solutions are used by numerous federal states, municipalities and districts, administrations and companies throughout the DACH region.
Further information:
https://www.univention.de.
Press contact:
Univention GmbH
Alice Horstmann
Head of Communication
presse@univention.de
+49 (0)421 222 32 27
Download
