ownCloud in Technical Partnership With Univention

ownCloud Inc., the commercial entity behind the open source file sync and share project, announced a technical partnership with Univention GmbH, a manufacturer of integrated Linux and open source-based infrastructure software products, bringing Univention customers secure, business-grade file synch and share capabilities.

The companies will preview the integration at CeBIT, Hannover, Germany on March 6-10.

With the integration of ownCloud with Univention Corporate Server (UCS) 3.0, IT administrators can manage users and user access rights for UCS 3.0 and ownCloud in a single graphical interface.

ownCloud users can run their own file sync and share services on their own hardware and storage, using public hosting and storage offerings, or both, enabling businesses using the combination of ownCloud and UCS to define for their employees which cloud storage provider to use and where to store data. This prevents employees from storing important contacts, appointments, and files – self-contained and uncontrolled – at non-secure cloud services such as Dropbox, Box.net or Apple iCloud, yet still enabling them to access their data using laptops, touchpads or smartphones.

"We recommend our customers use ownCloud to share and synchronize their corporate data, enabling them to store non-critical data at cost-saving cloud services and critical data on their own hard drives," said Peter Ganten, founder and MD of Univention. "Using the administration capabilities of UCS, businesses retain full control over their data and ensure they meet all legal requirements. The integration of ownCloud is part of our development effort to grow Linux infrastructure service UCS to an ideal IT management platform for the cloud."

"Univention is a leader in open source software in EMEA, a partner that many enterprises turn to for their proven expertise in open source software," said Holger Dyroff, co-founder and VP Sales and Marketing, ownCloud. "Integration of ownCloud with Univention’s management and directory services are a natural extension of Univention’s core capabilities, and make UCS 3.0 an ideal ownCloud platform for enterprise environments."

With more than 380,000 users and growing, ownCloud is an open source community project started at a KDE community event in 2010, aiming to bring greater flexibility, access and security to data in the cloud. It enables universal access to files through the WebDAV standard, providing a platform to view and sync contacts, calendars and bookmarks across devices while supporting sharing, viewing and editing via the web interface. Installation has minimal server requirements, doesn’t need special permissions and is quick. ownCloud is extendable via an API for applications.