Customer Story: pro mente tirol

pro mente tirol is a non-profit organization providing social psychiatric services throughout Tyrol, Austria. Beginning in 2019, in preparation for the end of Windows 7 support, the organization’s IT department migrated approximately 220 workstations across 24 locations to Ubuntu Linux desktops. Since then, Univention Nubus has centrally managed access to network shares through LDAP groups, while most business applications are delivered as web applications running in the browser. All data remains within the organization’s own network. The migration proved significantly less expensive than upgrading to a new Windows environment.

User

Non-profit social services organization
Provider of social psychiatric services for people with mental health conditions
Approximately 300 employees
24 locations throughout Tyrol, Austria
100% publicly funded

Requirements

Self-hosting with as much data as possible stored within the organization’s own network
GDPR-compliant processing of sensitive patient data
Cost-effective replacement of approximately 220 Windows 7 workstations
Reduced attack surface against ransomware
Continued use of existing hardware
Shift from locally installed software to browser-based web applications
Automated management of workstations, groups, and network share permissions
Central Identity & Access Management and Single Sign-on for connected applications

Solution

Nubus as the central Identity & Access Management solution, managing shares and permissions through LDAP groups
Ubuntu replacing Windows as the desktop operating system
Domain join for centralized group and permission management
Automated installation and configuration using Ansible playbooks
Custom Python script for automatically configuring network shares, Samba mounts, and file manager bookmarks
Implementation together with Univention partner Siedl Networks

Initial Situation

With Windows 7 reaching end of support in January 2020, pro mente tirol needed to replace approximately 220 workstations. A conventional Windows upgrade would have cost around €170,000, or approximately €120,000 even after nonprofit discounts.

Beyond the operating system itself, management faced a more fundamental question: Where should the organization’s data reside? The answer was clear wherever possible, data should remain within the organization’s own network, while external services would be evaluated carefully on a case-by-case basis.

Because pro mente tirol had already moved many services—including email, document management, collaboration, and client documentation to browser-based applications, the choice of desktop operating system became much more flexible.

Implementation and Rollout

In 2018, the IT department defined its migration strategy and selected Ubuntu as its future desktop platform. Ubuntu was chosen because of its widespread adoption and its large, active German-speaking community.

Since then, Univention Nubus has served as the central management platform for desktop administration. LDAP groups determine which network shares employees working with shared team accounts can access through centrally managed group permissions.

Workstation deployment begins with several manual steps, including operating system installation, SSH configuration, and printer setup. The computer is then joined to the Nubus domain, after which Ansible playbooks automatically install the required software packages. A custom Python script queries the directory service and automatically generates network drive mappings and file manager bookmarks.

Beginning in 2019, the rollout progressed gradually from location to location, including Reutte, Landeck, Imst, Schwaz, Kufstein, and Lienz. By late summer 2020, all planned sites had been successfully migrated.

In 2021, all workstations were upgraded from Ubuntu 18.04 to Ubuntu 20.04. Since the end of 2024, every Linux workstation has been running Ubuntu 24.04.

Approximately one month before each migration, the IT department held team meetings to explain the migration process, introduce the new applications, and discuss the reasons behind the transition. After each rollout, the IT team provided dedicated on-site support for two weeks, complemented by a tiered support model.

The entire migration ultimately cost only around €15,000, while allowing pro mente tirol to continue using approximately 90% of its existing hardware.

Fazit

Today, a Nubus portal with Single Sign-on serves as the central workspace at pro mente tirol. Employees sign in once and automatically see the applications available to their respective groups, regardless of whether those applications are hosted internally or externally. Initially, a Terminal Server providing access to Windows and Microsoft Office 365 remained available for compatibility purposes. Around four years later, pro mente tirol discontinued this access. Since the beginning of 2026, the organization has no longer provided Windows desktops. Login and application startup are now noticeably faster, even on older hardware.

“Our data stays with us. Our infrastructure belongs to us. That was the fundamental decision we made and we’re sticking to it,” says Michael Astenwald, Head of IT at pro mente tirol. “If you bring your employees on board before the first PC is migrated, you’ll face much less resistance later on.”