Infinite File Service: Cloud Solution by Computacenter

Computacenter AG & Co oHG has developed a cloud solution using ownCloud, Inc. and Red Hat, Inc.‘s technologies that is controlled locally, offers high performance and scales without any known boundaries.

The Infinite File Service (IFS) solution includes the ownCloud Enterprise Edition, object storage using Red Hat Ceph Storage, and OpenShift Container Platform.

The company claims IFS is the best fit for European industry players with global activities, that need to offer their employees access to data and files anywhere and on any device.

In order to attract the most talented people, companies today need to offer smart access to data and the ability to work from anywhere. There are public cloud offerings available with this approach, however can present compliance risks.

“Following the end of the European Court of Justice’s Safe Harbour Agreement, there is no legal foundation for European companies to sensibly store personal data inside the USA,” says Holger Dyroff, COO, ownCloud. “With our enterprise edition, companies have full control over their data, and can define the storage location according to their requirements. Federated Cloud Sharing enables our customers to organise different instances as one cloud. The gold partnership with Computacenter and the technology collaboration with Red Hat enables us to offer a strong and competitive solution.“

Traditional file servers are no longer the most effective way of keeping pace with the requirements in today’s business environment. Access for remote and mobile devices to old network set-ups can be almost impossible. In addition, file storage can often be far too slow and expensive when compared to object storage.

The firm sees a huge need for Enterprise File Sync and Share (EFSS) solutions at its largest customers. Norbert Steiner, solution manager, Computacenter, and his team analysed the offerings of ownCloud and Red Hat.

“ownCloud Enterprise convinced us because of its extreme scalability and performance. We love the easy way of co-branding for our customers,” says Erich Vogel, leader, cloud, Computacenter. “And, Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform enables us to provide and implement applications with breath-taking speed with a vast array of extensions. Red Hat Ceph Storage provides a robust, software-defined solution for both object and block storage. Through the close collaboration of Computacenter, ownCloud and Red Hat, we can offer an integrated, fully tested and supported solution which is easy to deploy, can be extended with the growing amount of users and data and is designed to operate without disruption – all based on powerful open source technology and innovation.“

“Together, ownCloud and Red Hat Ceph Storage provide a highly scalable, efficient and cost-effective alternative to conventional file service solutions,” said Gerald Sternagl, manager, business unit, EMEA, Red Hat. “We look forward to building on our collaboration with Computacenter and ownCloud via IFS to provide solutions that can meet the needs of data-intensive cloud environments.“