New platform brings choice and better integrated offers into the cloud
Bremen, 11 November 2014 Univention and other software and cloud service providers have created a new initiative in the form of the Open Cloud Alliance (OCA) to solve the key challenges in cloud computing today. The aim is to make users less dependent on the large providers and to give them back a choice of applications and providers. Furthermore, with the Alliances’ new open integration platform, regional cloud service providers (CSPs) can also provide a large number of applications with relative ease.
Enterprise customers want the cloud. So say the figures from all market researchers. Yet mid-sized customers, in particular, want a flexible and controllable cloud that allows competition and innovation. What they are looking for most is ease of use and suitable functions, as well as secure data protection, manageable contracts and integration with the existing infrastructure.
The Open Cloud Alliance, initiated by innovative open source software provider Univention, has undertaken to establish an open cloud standard together with a broad network of ISPs, software providers and system integrators. This will allow a comprehensive, uniform and modular cloud portfolio for all providers that meets customers’ needs for security, integration and compliance.
“For mid-sized enterprises, in particular, trust is the essential criterion for adopting cloud services. We create this with transparent open source software that can also be operated at any time by other cloud providers or within ones own company,” explains Peter Ganten, CEO of Univention. “In addition, we offer components that have so far been lacking, such as for integrating applications with each other or with the customers’ existing infrastructure.”
The technology behind the Open Cloud Alliance
The platform of the Open Cloud Alliance ensures an open and standardised environment in which hosters and IT service providers can quickly offer a wide range of enterprise applications. It integrates technologies and solutions of globally active companies into a central identity management system that can be easily combined with existing management systems such as Microsoft Active Directory on the customers’ premises. The software-side basis for the platform is the Univention Corporate Server (UCS) together with the leading open source cloud management system OpenStack and the Univention App Center.
The Open Cloud Alliance allows different operating models on this basis. It provides all technologies for hosting providers as well as for on-premises operation, and therefore allows both pure cloud solutions as well as hybrid scenarios. That way, the users gain the maximum freedom of choice for using cloud services.
Serving as reference hardware for the Open Cloud Alliance are Intel-based server systems of IBM / Lenovo with IBM Cloud Manager, the OpenStack implementation of IBM. Cloud service providers and end customers thereby gain a consistently supported, reliable and well-managed stack that is both integrated and at the same time open for integration with other solutions.
Open for further partners
Univention calls upon cloud service providers as well as systems builders, internet service providers and software providers to take this opportunity and become involved in the Open Cloud Alliance. The first software providers to join the Alliance include the provider of a Dropbox alternative, ownCloud, as well as vendors of collaboration platforms, Open-Xchange and Zarafa. On the side of cloud service providers, companies Netzlink from Braunschweig, teuto.net from Bielefeld and Plutex from Bremen, plus three other cloud service providers have pledged they will realise OCA-based services by the first quarter of 2015. Other partners will follow shortly.
About Univention
Univention is a leading supplier of Open Source products for the operation and management of IT infrastructures. The core product is Univention Corporate Server (UCS), an easy-to-use, cost-efficient and popular successor to server solutions from Microsoft. UCS contains comprehensive Active Directory functions and an App Center via which enterprise applications can be integrated and operated.
UCS allows web-based IT management and can be employed in organisations of all shapes and sizes. The product can be used as a classic server solution, on the cloud or in hybrid IT environments. It can be operated as a component for existing Microsoft infrastructures and supports the simple replacement of Microsoft Windows domains.
Based on UCS, Univention also offers Univention Corporate Client (UCC), a management solution for Ubuntu, and UCS@school, a complete system for the operation and management of IT in schools. Univention has a global partner network and subsidiaries across Europe and North America.
Contact Univention GmbH:
Univention GmbH
Silvia Frank
Press officer
Mary-Somerville-Straße 1
28359 Bremen, Germany
Tel.: +49 (0)421 22232 – 0
frank@univention.de
www.univention.de