Bremen, March 14, 2018 – Univention is proud to present the latest Univention Corporate Server (UCS) release. Version 4.3 of the established Open Source software now allows administrators to customize the portal pages which can be set up in UCS to suit the specific requirements of their organization very simply via the drag and drop feature. In addition, they are also able to make the more than 90 enterprise applications in UCS’ integrated App Center available to users. The users access these applications via the portal pages and, insofar as the respective application permits, only need to log in once thanks to the single sign-on mechanism. Univention has also considerably improved the data import performance. In this way, UCS 4.3 allows smaller companies to administrate heterogeneous IT environments with ease and fulfills the requirements of larger organizations with tens of thousands of users at the same time.
The most important new features in UCS 4.3 at a glance
Easy-to-administrate portal page: The portal page introduced with the release of UCS 4.2 provides users with access to the most varied of enterprise applications and resources from anywhere and at any time. With UCS 4.3, administrators can structure and administrate this portal simply and intuitively in a Visual Composer mode using the drag and drop feature. Users and groups are shown different content depending on their rights, department, branch, or school. The advantage: Users only see the content and applications that they actually need and for which they have the corresponding access rights. In this way, heterogeneous environments in particular, for example different schools or branches of the same company, can be supplied with precisely the apps and services they require.
Massive performance improvements: Based on internal tests, the automated LDAP data import under UCS 4.3 runs four times faster than in the past. For example, the import of 65,000 users in one heterogeneous school environment with distributed users belonging to a variety of groups took just a few hours. The subsequent distribution of the users across the different domains also took next to no time thanks to the mounting of Samba 4.7.
Single sign-on (SSO) linked to Kerberos: When users log in to UCS on their Windows or Linux PC, laptop, or mobile end device, they have immediate access to web applications such as Office 365 or ownCloud/Nextcloud. There is no need to sign on again. This is made possible by the linking of the security assertion markup language (SAML) with the Kerberos authentication introduced with UCS 4.3. Practical for administrators: There is no need to sign on to the Univention Management Console (UMC) again.
Debian base updated: UCS 4.3 has been updated to Debian 9 (“Stretch”) and changed over to the standard Debian kernel. The solution therefore offers even higher compatibility with applications and expansions developed for or adapted to Debian.
Active Directory Connector for Windows servers up to Version 2016: Administrators can use the UCS tool “Active Directory Connector” for the administration of Windows servers up to Version 2016. If UCS is joined in an Active Directory domain, they can make a wide range of Open Source applications such as ownCloud, Nextcloud, Mattermost, and Kopano available in Windows environments.
The MySQL database has been replaced with MariaDB and Nagios 3 with Nagios 4 as the standard monitoring system.
Prices and availability
UCS 4.3 is available now. Customers can choose between the free UCS Core Edition and different subscription models with enterprise support and a maintenance guarantee lasting up to seven years. Prices start at €290 per year (10 users, one domain). For further information, please visit www.univention.com/products/prices-and-subscriptions.
