260 guests at the Univention Summit 2015 in Bremen
Bremen, January 21, 2015. The 260 business customers and partners who attended the Univention Summit 2015 experienced a particularly special event which exceeded the expectations of even the organisers themselves: At the heart of the event was an impressive demonstration of the new “Open Cloud Alliance”, which promises its users an open cloud with freely combinable solution offers. No less impressive was the new UCS Version 4.0, with which the Linux server operating system can finally leave the status of “Windows alternative” behind it once and for all, having evolved into an open IT platform for on premise use and use on clouds.
There is no better word to describe the atmosphere at the Univention Summit last week than “buzzing”, with 260 people excitedly and passionately discussing, debating and exchanging opinions. The two highlights alone (the Open Cloud Alliance and the new UCS version) were sufficient fodder for discussion. “It was the type of event that we wish happened more often”, said Werner Hehenwarter, CEO of the ERP software developer Helium V IT-Solutions GmbH. “Perfectly organised and an excellent platform for making new contacts among our sales and distribution partners and users as well as tending to existing relations. In our eyes, UCS and the App Center from Univention is a forward-looking platform for modern IT operations.”
Open Cloud and integration instead of lock-in
The host, Peter Ganten, CEO of Univention, welcomed the guests to the cloud era. “The cloud has finally arrived. It is now no longer a case of “whether”, but merely a case of “how”. Nevertheless, we still think that the challenge facing us now is how to integrate cloud computing in the existing infrastructure – not replacing systems altogether. With the Open Cloud Alliance we have already taken a decisive step towards mastering this task.” This alliance, a collaboration of hardware and software developers as well as cloud service providers, makes it possible to offer an extensive portfolio of mutually integrated applications very rapidly and simply and to combine it with the end customers’ existing infrastructures and other cloud offers simply.
The decisive advantage in this for our end customers is that they are free to decide whether they want to run each individual app and service in their own computer centre or via a cloud service provider. Changing between ISPs and different applications is also possible at any time without any complications.
The Open Cloud is based on the newly released Version 4.0 of Univention Corporate Server with its App Center, the central management and an already extensive range of enterprise applications for on premise use and use on clouds. “As such, we are no longer simply an alternative to Windows, but rather an open platform for enterprise IT”, affirmed Mr Ganten. “We already offer companies a large selection of cloud solutions and they retain control over their data and services.”
Our partners are already convinced
The partners are what really bring a cloud platform based on the concepts of the Open Cloud Alliance to life. The fact that the Univention platform is already full of life was evident in the number of cloud service providers who attended the summit and demonstrated their initial test implementations. The visitors were able to see for themselves how easily applications can be operated from the Open Cloud and administrated via UCS’ central management platform. “We can tell how excited and enthusiastic the software developers and cloud service providers are to develop this platform together with us”, said Mr Ganten. “We regularly receive enquiries from software developers who also want to make it possible for business customers to use their solutions as the basis for practical, customer-specific cloud offers.” And our system house partners are getting involved as well. “We meet customers here and plan new projects based on UCS and the numerous partner solutions on the front line”, explained Martin Werthmöller, CEO of the system house LWsystems. “Just as in previous years, this year’s Univention Summit proved to be a valuable platform for a wide range of important product information once again.”
Back to school with UCS
The “UCS@school” focus stood out impressively from the wide range of workshops on offer at the summit. Almost 30 education authorities, schools and providers of school IT solutions from Germany, Austria and Switzerland took part in the practical workshops and best practice presentations. They were all in agreement about how important practical integration of students and teaching tools into school IT is among other things. “For use in schools, we need a stable, secure platform that pupils’ devices can be mounted in easily”, said Elke Glutsch from the Chemnitz Office for Schools and Sport, where work is under way to allow central administration of the entire school IT by the education authorities. “With its systems, Univention provides the perfect basis for this type of mobile learning offers.”
The visitors were full of praise for the quality of the information. They were delighted to see that their opinions were welcomed with open arms and that they were able to exchange their experiences with the Univention developers at eye level. For the CEO, Mr Ganten, “…this is important and an invaluable opportunity for collating the opinions of so many customers and partners, which we can then employ in our product development.
Download our high resolution images at: https://www.univention.com/press-downloads/
Further impressions of the event (in high resolution on request) at: www.univention-summit.com
About Univention
Univention is a leading provider of Open Source products for the operation and management of IT infrastructures. The core product is Univention Corporate Server (UCS), a flexible, cost-efficient and successful alternative 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 for hybrid IT environments. It can be operated as a component for existing Microsoft infrastructures and supports the simple replacement of Microsoft Windows domains. Univention has a global partner network and subsidiaries across Europe and North America.
Contact:
Univention GmbH
Silvia Frank
Mary-Somerville-Straße 1
28359 Bremen
Tel.: +49 (0)421/22232-81
frank@univention.de
www.univention.com/
punktgenau PR
Christiane Schlayer
Tel.: +49 (0)911 9644332
Mobile: +49 (0)179 5053522