UCS 5.0 – first release candidate published

With the first release candidate (RC), we are announcing the finalization phase for the major release of Univention Corporate Server, UCS 5.0. We will be concentrating on stabilizing the features implemented up to this point. Compared to the beta version of UCS 5, which we published in December, we have been able to achieve many improvements, in particular in the web interface of the UCS portal, the management console and the Univention App Center. I would like to present these briefly.

UCS 5.0 Beta: Preview of the new generation

UCS 5.0 Beta Release
We published the last UCS major release (UCS 4.0) in 2016. With UCS 5.0, we have now decided to go for an extensive update of the technical base and design of UCS. The first beta version of UCS 5.0, which has now been released, provides an initial preview of these updates. While testers are invited to try it, app vendors are offered a possibility to port and adapt their software. The beta version gives a glimpse of the new UI design and already provides some of the planned functions. However, this preview is not intended for productive use.

UCS 5.0 – Focus instead of feature overkill

Logo Effekt UCS 5.0
The variety of existing Open Source projects makes it easy to add new features to a modular product like UCS. The basic requirements for many things already exist and there are positive experiences with those software projects. At Univention, we pursue the goal of making these functions available to our users. In addition, we want to maintain the integration with our core components. This maintenance is definitely the larger part of the work, which is very noticeable during upgrades. One goal of UCS 5.0 is therefore to focus on the functions that strengthen the core benefit of UCS and to prevent that UCS will become unmaintainable due to feature overkill. Unfortunately, this means saying goodbye to functions and projects that won our hearts. Thus, we first have to close some chapters before we can rejoice over new features in future blog articles.

Farewell to “Master” and “Slave”: new names for system roles in UCS 5.0

UCS 5.0 Beta Release

In December we will open the beta release of UCS 5.0 to the public. For users who have been using UCS for a longer period of time, the renaming of the system roles in particular will bring a significant change, which will be visible in the beta release. In addition to the  removal of known terms of discrimination (“master” and “slave”), we would like to use new names in order to reflect the central functionality of our new system in the respective names. In the following, I will introduce the new naming for the system roles and explain the goals we are pursuing with it.

UCS 5.0 status update: Beta Release in December 2020

UCS 5.0 Beta Release

Almost exactly one year has passed since the announcement that we are working on UCS 5.0. Since then, we have been very busy and made some important steps towards making UCS a future-proof platform. In December 2020, we intend to make the first results publicly available in a Beta Release. In this article, I would like to give you a first taste of the exciting new features that UCS 5.0 will bring.